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UNDER THE YOKE 


A Book with a Purpose 


By 

F. DALTON O’SULLIVAN 


/ 


Author of The American Merchant , Fighters Behind the Lines , 
The Primrose Path , Enemies of the Underworld, 
(Detective), Applied Psychology and 
Its Relation to Crime, etc. 



LANSING, LTD., Publishers 

Garland Building 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 




Copyright 1921 By 
LANSING, LIMITED 

CHICAGO 


All Rights Reserved 


NOV 14 1321 


/ 


* 

©CI.A653530 






PREFACE 

This volume though not easy to describe is not dif- 
ficult to appreciate. It contains a series of chapters, 
giving the brightest side of an enlightened age in the 
Business, Social, and Political World. 

As an American business novel it deals with the 
classes as well as the masses. Perhaps you shall hear 
a woman’s laugh; it may be the melody of her song; 
and you may catch the whisper of a good man’s prayer, 
or the yelp of trust-makers that clang with the babble 
of thousands who move, work, pray, struggle, live and 
die on foreign shores. 

Much of my story material is business. You who 
comprehend the enormous trend of trade, political, 
domestic and foreign, will recognize the steel frame- 
work of reality which supports every statement. I found 
them here in America. I dare say you have found them 
too, and also noted the undercurrent of disapproval and 
discontent that wheel-locks our ideals of business pro- 
gress. Injurious competition is a natural business foe. 
But there are bitter enemies to cause many a reproach 
and failure, while they lurk near with their danger and 
calamity, hanging on with steel tenacity and fighting us 
day and night! 

John Coleen is the leading character. Being an 
editor, author and something of a public speaker, his 
ideas are his ideals and decidedly distinctive. All dif- 
ficulties in business are met with smiling front and in- 
vincible determination. I believe no man of ability 
will read the life of this man without recognizing some- 
thing of his own character, especially that driving force 
that manifests itself when a man is determined to suc- 
ceed against organized forces which down the majority, 
every opposing force that the old world offers. I have 
portrayed him just as I found him ; as I knew him. His 
experiences are every man’s experiences, though probably 


not shaped in the same mould. I would not call him a 
hero but a fighter. Hating the idle subterfuge in busi- 
ness and despising the sluggish determination of men 
in power to fight a recognized enemy, to destroy a 
lurking evil, Coleen fights single-handed for a time. It 
was not an easy task to convince even the most intel- 
ligent business men that he was pointing out to them the 
Evil all men must fight and conquer or forever forsake 
the ideals of legitimate industry. 

His exploits are not tedious and I think at times they 
are enlivening; for he has a boyish nature, with plenty 
of the college boy’s enthusiasm to win in a battle, if 
only that of a passing game. He found men who 
thought they were eternally beaten in the game of busi- 
ness. He shows them the grip of determination and cer- 
tainty. He knows of cunning, deceit, trickery, and all 
familiar games of chance which trip the average busi- 
ness man when he least expects them. His knowledge 
of the conspirators’ plots against a nation’s welfare is 
as interesting as it is true and novel. While touching 
all themes in lighter vein, still John Coleen knew when 
to call a halt; for then it was that he put his finger on 
the vital spot which some men would innocently over- 
look. 

As this is his life story it has its human interest, 
love, pathos and some mirth. Human characteristics, 
daintily feminine and fascinating, are seen peering from 
one character and another. 

There are different phases of love in his life, some 
pure in spirit while others border on the elements that 
make for countless vicissitudes in any life. It is the 
natural unfolding of an ordinary man’s love affairs (or 
any man’s for that matter), even to bordering on the 
sentimental and the dangerous. I dealt frankly with 
his love affairs, not as an example; but because they 
are a part of the structural story and portray a phase 
in his nature which is admirable even in its weakness. 
Noble men have loved deeply and well, probably at 
the wrong time, especially at a time when an over- 
mastering love emotion cajoled them at a dull or lonely 


moment to help drive Care away. Such love however, 
has been known to depart like celestial ether in warm 
sunshine. 

However you wish to judge his sentimental life, we 
leave you to be your own judge. As a man I knew him 
more intimately as a fighter in business. He was analyt- 
ical and the cleverest interpreter of trickery that I have 
ever known. 

Throughout the entire narrative I have made one 
supreme effort, to portray his American individuality as 
it is evidenced today in one of the most characteristic 
features in our whole business plan. He was the in- 
cessant agitator of “United Brotherhood” and no man 
"Worked harder or with less hope for a time of accom- 
plishing anything in the spirit of man’s humanity to 
man, than did John Coleen. 

Today there is not a business enterprise in industrial 
America that is not forging ahead to bring about a spirit 
of loyalty among its workers. The profit-sharing plan 
with its sense of fairness was one factor of his work. 
You know the result as it is found to-day. 

Garthage was but a mining town when John Coleen 
went there to make his home. He found it in the usual 
atmosphere of toil and turmoil, strikes, dissention, 
slavery, and everything that meant loss, destruction, 
disease and death. In the little town he meets his best 
friend, a Polish priest'. There is no religious bond be- 
tween the two men. Their friendship however is ideal, 
for Coleen’s coming was at a time when the foreign ele- 
ment came with its feeling of hope, anxiety and fear that 
pervades the immigrants as they approach America, the 
land of their dreams — and shattered hopes. 

Father Jarenski, the priest, is an old-fashioned father 
of the world at large. He was too old to be of great 
active service; yet he is, if I must confess the truth, 
the golden clasp that makes it worth while to use that 
clasp to hold these pages together. A good man, a 
friend, serious yet humorous, there is something tender 
in making the friendship of the fine old gentleman, 
though you meet him only as a character in a book. He 


was fond of John Coleen. He imbibed much from the 
younger man’s youth and enthusiasm, and it was he who 
helped John Coleen to begin at the lowly foothills in the 
mining town of Garthage and it was the priest’s nobility 
of purpose that assisted him to reach the summit of their 
confined desires. 

You say, “Then this is a book with a purpose?” I 
answer you honestly. It is! Were it lacking in some- 
thing helpful, I have written it in vain. It was to help, 
to inspire, to guide, that I wrote it at all. It has a 
solemn message. But I prefer that you find it for your- 
self. 

FRANK DALTON O’SULLIVAN. 


INDEX 


Chapter Page 

I. Old Work in a New Field 1 

II. His First Paper , 8 

III. The Missing Patriots 14 

IV. Carnival of Human Events 26 

V. New Discoveries 37 

VI. Coming Events 45 

VII. Shoulder to Shoulder with Nature 51 

VIII. New Beginnings. . . 63 

IX. Expecting the Change of Tide 72 

X. For Honor’s Sake 79 

XI. A New Sensation 84 

XII. Big Steel Plant 96 

XIII. Civic Progress and Dead Sea Fruit 106 

XIV. In The Town of the Fighting Chance. , v . .117 

XV. Matrimonial Vines and Autumn Leaves . . 132 

XVI. Business Ethics . ., 145 

XVII. A Day in the Mills 157 

XVIII. Then Comes a Day 172 

XIX. Diplomats 179 

XX. The Philosopher among his Papers 188 

XXI. The Master Hold 194 

XXII. Growing Garthage 201 

XXIII. New Arrangements 210 

XXIV. The Pageant 215 

XXV. The Glad Hand 221 

XXVI. Another Turn 229 

XXVII. Foreign Events 240 

XXVIII. Dictated but not Read 251 

XXIX. A Wedding in the Woods 257 

XXX. The New Era 267 

XXXI. For Home and America 277 

XXXII. Again on the Force 290 






« 









* '* 






























CHAPTER I. 

OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 


^TERNOON drowsiness settled over the mining 



i \ valley where once in a while a breeze from 
the dank woods rising majestically to the north and 
south of Garthage, sent its promise of Spring to those 
who thought of the vernal season. Already the dark 
green foliage reminded one of a flower calyx, — but hold- 
ing no beautiful flower to its bruised heart. 

John Coleen looked from his office window. At first 
he saw only the dirty red mining houses, squatting in 
yards of cinder or beaten clay. True, there were some finer 
dwellings at a distance and the business houses, wall to 
wall, were modern, for the mining town was young. 
Shining railroad steel, burnished to a whitish outline, 
marked the veining of the principal industrial output. 
Long rows of empty coal cars stood on a siding, ready 
to be drawn up the high tipple to the mouth of the 
mine. This tipple looked like the backbone of some 
huge monster, and maybe it was some unknown monster 
that stood at the yawning mouth of the great mine. 
Death came so often that one could imagine some un- 
known or unseen foe awaiting its victim. Even the 
turbulent little creek which tumbled and babbled at 
the foot of the hill was filled with a redlike fluid, only 
the effects of the oxide from the mines, yet it seemed 
that something, maybe that foe, had severed some of 
the earth’s great arteries, for the bloodlike stain crept 
day and night down the bruised hillside and flowed its 
way to the clearer water of the Ohio River, lower in the 
valley. 


2 OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 

Coleen was a newspaper man, fresh from the West. 
His optimistic outlook from his open office window was 
enigmatical at the time; but he had no intention of 
permitting the somewhat dismal scene to dampen his 
enthusiasm. He mused as he looked from hilltop to 
valley, from valley to the blue dome above all. Think- 
ing came lightly and pleasantly to him. After all a 
newspaper man lives most of his life in happy contem- 
plation when not in realization. He felt again the tug 
of that ambition which brought him to Garthage, urged 
him to buy the metal furniture of a wornout printing 
office, left by a much disgusted young job printer who 
was only too glad to get away. Coleen did not feel that 
he was going to follow a blind lead if he established 
himself in the office for a purpose. It was not promis- 
ing to an average newspaper man who did not mean 
to branch out. He would not fail at the start. His ex- 
perience as a reporter, city editor, general manager, set 
his thoughts to thinking in slugs, bases, rules and space. 
Unmindful of possible obstacles, for he expected them, 
he set out to go to the station. The train was due 
at six o’clock and he expected his wife and little son 
on the train. 

As Coleen walked over to the station, not far distant 
from his office, he felt for the first time that the town 
was disgustingly dirty, at least the business section. 
It seemed dead at that hour and only the shifting of cars 
and the shriek of an engine broke the silence. He passed 
a Catholic church. He looked at the gilded cross poised 
aloft above many saloons which did a thriving business 
within its very shadow! It was a tall, ugly building 
which crouched against a hillside, its rear seemingly im- 
bedded in the hill as if that part was supported by old 
Mother Earth. A pyramid of steps showed a wide door 
in the very middle of the building at their apex. One 


OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 


3 


must climb these steps at either side to get into the 
church and there were too many steps leading upward. A 
weird building indeed. Beneath the steps on the ground 
floor was a lower door to the basement. Guarded with 
its iron gate and showing many chains, somehow or other 
the holy edifice was enough to remind one of a big 
bulldog in the path. 

Coleen saw a priest coming down the steps. The 
rather handsome father, who was a Polish priest, smiled 
and spoke to the stranger within his gate. The good 
man was on his way to a home of new made grief. A trap- 
per boy had been injured in the mine. He was only 
a little fellow and death was coming so soon, so soon. 
Father Jarenski was grieved. Death had claimed the 
father of this boy in the mine. It had waited too for 
another son. Was it possible that human life was nec- 
essary for the sustenance of that foe? It did appear 
to be the case. 

A bright, pretty girl passed Coleen. She gave him a 
whimsical look, walked on, turned and looked back. 
Coleen was only thirty-six years old, still a handsome 
man, and she was wondering who he was. Coleen did 
not return the look, he thought only of one woman, 
though he could observe others if he cared to. At the 
next corner he saw a woman who did attract his at- 
tention. It was Sonia. The wistful eyes of the girl-wife 
were looking down the street in search of her father. 
She was a widow who had returned to her father’s home 
and each day she went to the saloon to take him home. 
The great mine had robbed her of her boy-husband. 
Some day a little baby was coming and Tony would 
never know, no, never see the baby! Sonia’s grief was 
so new, so fresh, so hard to bear that she made daily 
visits to the cemetery, there to weep in her wretchedness 


4 OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 

over the clay mound with its wooden cross and brilliant 
red immortelles. 

The station presented its usual noisy, bustling scene. 
Men, women and children hurried to and fro. Children 
played tag, screamed, romped or cried. Several men 
who sold papers were waiting for the train to get their 
usual stock of daily news from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. 
Dozens of miners sat outside the building or rested on 
beer kegs. Traveling men walked over from the 
railroad hotel, glanced at the bulletin board and some 
did not swear softly. The train was late. 

The editor sat down in the main waiting room. Sev- 
eral men were discussing labor questions. This at- 
tracted Coleen for he had heard that Garthage might 
be in another universal strike and if this did occur, as 
it had the year before, when business was paralyzed 
for months, he was not quite sure that his present loca- 
tion was what he wanted. 

“You see it is useless to think the laborer can control 
capital,” spoke the man who was Mr. Holmes, one of 
the business men on an upper street. “I don’t know but 
that it is as well to follow the man with the money. You 
don’t get any satisfaction this way, you know.” 

Coleen who had just appeared did not know what had 
just been said; but it was evident the men were thrash- 
ing over the old subject of labor and capital. It was 
heard in every place. It seemed to be the element at 
work in the heart, brain and body of all men who took 
any part in the industrial world. 

His eyes brightened. He turned as the man spoke 
and hesitated. He caught himself feeling for a pencil. 
After all it was a part of his business to know what 
the men in that town were thinking, and no man 
had delved deeper into the subject than the stranger 
who listened and thought. 


5 


OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 

To him it meant — everything. It had sent him across 
a continent. He had felt the lash and he knew the scorn 
of it. He recalled something intimate, something so 
close to his own heart that it was not unlike the thrust 
of an Arab’s knife, driven by a woman’s hand! Yes, 
Coleen did know. He had given his best years while 
learning and he wondered just how much the men knew 
who were discussing what was so near to his own 
thoughts all the time. 

One man woke, apparently, and snapped his fingers. 
He had been listening while others talked. He had 
been leaning against the wall, like a part of it, but sud- 
denly came to life. Coleen wanted to laugh with his 
usual jolly whoop when the man spoke, for he seemed 
to be giving the editor a side swipe greeting, if Coleen 
wished to take it that way. 

“As I think of failure and success, just as we have it 
right in a little place like this, I don’t suppose it is dif- 
ferent from what it is in every town or city. The most 
general and common cause of failure is lack of capital. 
Many men venture into business with just enough money 
to ‘swing’ the enterprise for a month or so, at the end of 
which time they expect the new business to be self- 
supporting. It seldom is, and the concern becomes a 
financial cripple. The inevitable is sure to happen.” 

“Labor or no labor,” murmured his listener, out of an 
apparent slumber, “don’t you think lack of business in- 
stinct and business enterprise has a lot to do with it? 
There is the case of Cansby who came here without a 
cent. His wife did his thinking for him, and actually 
taught him how to produce, or where on earth would he 
be today? Her loyalty was a part of the game and to- 
day that woman has a chain of stores up and down this 
valley, everyone fighting that all powerful mail-order 
Octopus, while a lot of business men right here are 


6 


OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 


letting it eat them alive. I tell you, you can talk from 
now until Doomsday; but if you don’t have that fighting 
spirit in you to take care of your own, you can’t stay here 
and you are of as little use elsewhere. The most pro- 
nounced cause of business failure is lack of patronage 
and inability to get it. You have to go after trade; it 
doesn’t come to you, and even if the mines do close here, 
do we have to depend on them? There is coal enough 
there to last for twenty years; but if operations cease 
tomorrow, is that any reason why other industries have 
to lie idle? Hardly, in this territory, towns all 
around you, and you closer to them, than they are to any 
city. You see the mails are going right over your heads 
and after a while it will be over your bodies as well as 
my own. And one of the very first men to squeal will 
be one who never said a word of warning. That’s the 
kind of men who don’t do a thing to a town but add 
a little to the population by their presence, and such men 
are not needed.” 

The talker had not weighed his words but he spoke 
slowly, like a man who thinks before he speaks or 
while he talks. He knew that no man will dispute the 
fact that residents of even such towns as Garthage, 
where a general business was carried on, can and do 
enjoy a pronounced advantage over the people living 
in the Cities where the population is congested. He said 
as much; but of course some did not agree with him. 

A bevy of pretty girls, laughing and jostling around 
the ticket window broke pleasantly on the waiters; for 
laughter is contagious. Evidently the good-looking 
ticket agent was a friend of the girls, for pleasantries 
were well met and he had a difficult time parring their 
merry ejaculations. They were making the usual even- 
ing call. Lonesome girls like these, are found at 
almost all small railroad stations. They follow the 


7 


OLD WORK IN A NEW FIELD 

crowd for no reason other than to see what is going on 
and to be in the midst of something a little enlivening. 
Then these girls knew Brewster. He went to their 
parties. No person questioned their presence there or 
wondered at their noisy pleasure. School girls are in- 
nocent merrymakers at best and these were to be June 
graduates. 

In the distance sounded a train whistle, low and not 
quite clear, but muffled by the great tunnel and distant 
hill. But the engine snorting through the long tunnel, 
blowing its black breath back into the great open space 
drew in at the station. 

Coleen grasped the letter in his coat pocket. It told 
him she was coming. O, God, how he wanted her! It 
had been many, many months since he had seen her. 
How he disliked to take her to his ugly rooms in the 
hotel. There was nothing better at the time. What 
would she think of a home in this mining town? The 
seriousness of her part in his scheme was never so pain- 
fully presented as at the moment. But he might have 
spared himself the fleeting thought with its pain, for 
the passengers came out on the platform and his dream 
faded. 

His wife was not there! 


CHAPTER II 

HIS FIRST PAPER, 

T HE people of Garthage, as well as readers of Coleen’s 
first paper who were found throughout the county, 
were mildly amazed at the style. They had been ac- 
customed to the usual weekly paper of the lower county 
when one was published, since the county seat had a 
monoply, seemingly, on all newspapers of all creeds and 
denominations. The usual weeklies from smaller towns 
were unsuccessful ventures. 

The Garthage News was a newspaper which bespoke 
all that an editor, a thinking man could put in it. It 
was a most interesting infant. Coleen knew his work; 
though his heart and mind were confused and tormented 
while getting out his first paper. But he was filled with 
honest pride in the final result. 

Work, after all, is the cure. No person need know his 
heartache. Why should he tell anything? He could 
work. He would work. What was the use to back down 
and give up early in the struggle? The only woman on 
earth who meant anything to him was thwarting his 
plans. How well she knew what he was doing and why 
he was doing it. Could love be true that held the least 
doubt? He thought of the boy. Only once had the 
thought of the little fellow caused the father to stop 
his work and wish never to resume it. Wasn’t his labor 
of love for both? 

It was the second day of his reportorial round. He 
had returned to his office with his notes and his first 
installment of advertisements. 

“What is it for?” he asked himself. The quiet of the 


HIS FIRST PAPER 


9 


little office gave no gentle reply. The man bowed Eis 
head on his folded arms which lay heavily on his desk. 
He scarcely breathed with the heavy weight of soul op- 
pression. Men pray in this quiet attitude. Others 
prepare for suicide, and even the murderer can court 
his evil scheme while dreaming at his desk. Coleen was 
only weary with the desire for his wife and boy. She 
might come; again, she might not. She was whimsical, 
always had been. 

It does seem as if unkind Fate has a way of selecting 
some of our best men as husbands for erratic companions 
who, though honorably devoted, may be deaf, dumb and 
blind to the big interest where they could do the most 
good. 

This, then, was Coleen’s stumbling-block. She had 
so many opportunities to uphold him. She was not doing 
it and, as he thought of the boy, he silently wondered 
what the little fellow would think — in time? Probably 
what his mother taught him. And the mother of his 
boy thought as her father thought, and Coleen hated 
the man as his bitterest enemy and foe. Each was an 
editor. 

He opened the papers before him. He would make 
a good paper. His resolve was as solemn as the litany. 

One advertiser read the paper. Instinctively he knew 
the man’s value as a newspaper maker, but he wondered 
why any man with Coleen’s versatility, strength and 
native wit was in Garthage. Garthage was not the place 
for him. Something wrong! 

He threw his paper down on the table in the Council 
room and turning to several men in the office, he pointed 
at the paper, saying: “There is something worth while 
in that man. Best to cultivate him. He has something 
up his sleeve. If he isn’t a crook, he is a schemer. I 
rather imagine there is something crooked somewhere. 


10 


HIS FIRST PAPER 


One thing — he is mixed up in everything. He will show 
his cards before long, and I don’t think it will be long 
before he throws his hand, face up, on the table.” 

“You are devilish suspicious,” added Cansby. “Per- 
sonally I like the man. I like a mixer and what is more, 
I imagine that whatever sent him here is of a domestic 
and not a business nature. You can’t get anything out 
of him that he doesn’t care to reveal, yet his general 
habits are all right and I have an idea he had a pull 
up some place; maybe is down and out financially, and 
even Garthage is not a bad place to recuperate finan- 
cially if a person pursues the right course.” 

Squire Bates, old and learned in the ways of men, 
listened in silence. From time to time he beat a desultory 
tat-a-tat on both arms of his chair, dreamily blinking 
at a half-burned out incandescent. When the men had 
discussed the first edition of Coleen’s paper, Bates picked 
the paper up, folded it carefully, pressing the creases to 
original evenness, habit of a man who has ever pursued 
a sort of orderly course in business and can find pen, 
paper, blotter or stamps in a dark room. 

“I don’t know what he is,” said Bates. “I used to 
judge men; but I don’t do it now. I made too many 
wrong guesses. I admire this man’s candor. I like the 
hustle in him and I can’t see where he can work an evil 
motive or pursue anything damaging to this neighborhood 
or its people by merely turning out a little weekly sheet. 
I was talking with him the other day in his office. He 
isn’t narrow, not a bit of it, and one thing that inter- 
ested me greatly was what he said about the mail- 
order Octopus. It does beat everything how the mail- 
order houses are stripping the country.” 

“Well, you know it does not affect us here. There is 
no need of any business man in Garthage feeling the 
burden of the mail-order industry. We furnish what 


HIS FIRST PAPER 


11 


the people want, and I don’t think our trade is hampered 
by this influence. It may be different elsewhere, though 
I can’t believe it.” 

“You can’t?” spoke one of the councilmen, George 
Kirk. “Well, I want to tell you that in the last year 
I know for a dead certainty that I have issued thousands 
of dollars worth of post office orders to different mail-order 
houses; and I have been astonished this spring at the 
enormous amount of purchases made by the farmers. 
Go over to the freight office and ask Newell what he is 
doing in handling freight and express from these con- 
cerns.” This postmaster knew. 

But the subject was uninteresting. Cansby started 
something about the hanging strike. This was their in- 
terest. The miners constituted the general number of 
buyers. They spent all they earned. To have them 
tied up in the long strike was the Jonah of their deeper 
meditation, so Coleen and his paper were forgotten, but 
not for long, for the breezy Coleen opened the door, 
walked in and greeted all men in that congenial style 
that bespeaks fellowship and brotherhood among men. 
And the men were equally gracious. Naturally he asked 
what they thought of the paper, since each was an ad- 
vertiser. The remarks being complimentary, he did not 
remain long, only to make a few inquiries, making the 
usual notation on the folded paper he brought in with 
him, then he left. 

At the corner of the street he met another councilman 
who stopped him. “Are you going to lick the liquor 
question here?” he inquired. 

Coleen smiled. 

“I did not' come here to lick anything. Fm not 
trying to reform the world. If anything comes up con- 
cerning this industry, I expect to say what the occasion 
demands; but I never trump up stuff to make my story, 


12 


ms FIRST PAPER 


too much good stuff for that. Do you drink?” Coleen 
diverted the question with a boyish laugh. 

“I do not drink! I never have! I never shall! Un- 
derstand that, Mr. Coleen?” 

“You just bet I understand it. It is bad business. 
I don’t do it myself, but I have. I have been lit up like all 
Broadway and it sure does put a zip to some literary 
work, for a while. But I know this — it isn’t the drinking 
man who makes good. But you can go back in history 
until you can dig no more into its mysteries, and there 
you will find that the men who made the world go round 
were not the men who never touched liquor, but those 
who did and quit.” 

His listener did not believe him. He walked on, faith- 
ful to the mandates of the testament he always carried in 
his coat pocket. That day he had cheated a widow of a 
very small sum of money; but he did it legitimately, he 
made himself imagine. 

Coleen often prayed. He sang divinely in the church; 
but, as he watched the retreating figure of the man with 
the peanut-shaped head, he inwardly chuckled, “The 
chump,” with the belief that his inward ejaculation was 
true. 

The next day Coleen heard that one of the councilmen 
had remarked that the new editor was strongly in favor 
of the saloon, believing that only the men who drink are 
the ones capable of putting a shoulder to the business 
wheel when it refuses to revolve. 

Looking down with that studious brown-study gaze 
which characterized his actions when dealing with a 
“scoop,” he quickly lifted his head with a defiant upward 
jerk, laughed and walked on. He had little respect for 
the drunkard from choice; he never withheld a kindly 
hand to the struggler in need of a friend at the critical 
turning point when he, too, learned there was nothing in 


HIS FIRST PAPER 13 

drinking. So, with these mixed thoughts, he returned to 
the office, there to get out his second paper. 


CHAPTER III 

THE MISSING PATRIOTS 

C OLEEN’S career was not phenomenal at all. He got 
out his weekly, making a good showing each week. 
His work was pleasant, and added interests made the 
business more lucrative. He engaged a clever young 
woman to handle small locals and outside correspondence 
from neighboring towns. He doubled and trebled his cir- 
culation. The paper grew thrifty and better-looking while 
the man at the helm pursued the usual routine, though 
not without many conjectures from persons who never 
quite understood the man’s coming to Garthage. If he 
was married, no person knew it but the postmaster; 
and the postmaster had a short memory. He did not 
repeat office affairs to the general public. Consequently 
many persons believed the handsome young editor to be 
a bachelor. It concerned no person, therefore, no inter- 
est was taken in his personal affairs. 

He was with many of the thousands who went to Halli- 
day’s Cove on the Fourth of July to engage in the patri- 
otic festivities of the day. He went because it was the 
only place to go. 

It was a hot, dry, breath-taking day in town; but the 
moist green woods with the blue-green waters, like a mini- 
ature lake, swirling in the depths of the woods, were most 
inviting to the picnic makers. The wearing of flags pro- 
claimed the spirit more than anything else. 

Long before he reached the woods, Coleen heard the 
soft Italian music, played by their own local band. He 
loved it. Each man was a musician. Their selections 
were of that Italian sweetness and tenderness that has 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 15 

peculiar charm apart from most music. Presently he came 
in sight of the immense dancing platform where many 
young persons were dancing. He smiled at the sight, glad 
of that feeling which made so little difference in nation- 
ality, but joined in a spirit of merry-making, pleasing to 
all. 

He passed a group of foreigners seated in a merry 
group under huge forest trees. Close to him was a familiar 
face. It was Sonia, gazing down at her two weeks’ old 
baby, passing a forefinger around the delicate contour of 
a tiny Italian face, puckered, pink and not very pretty. 
But Sonia’s grief was turned to tenderest joy; for the 
baby was a tiny toy, and Sonia was only a child, after all, 
and how dearly she loved that baby! 

That deep look, like a prayer in a man’s eyes, glanced 
at other children, many, no doubt, the age of his own 
boy. He had never felt so lonely in his life. He was 
down-hearted. The thought came to him that even Ital- 
ian dance music was no consolation to him; that there 
was something lacking around him that the crowd could 
not furnish; and something there he did not want. 
There were thousands of persons present that' were 
strangers to him. He believed his paper to be responsible 
for this great gathering. He had announced the noted 
speakers who were to address the afternoon crowd, 
and he urged the mayor to prohibit any intoxicants on 
the ground, having heard that mostly were these picnics 
of mixed nationalities ended in a drunken disgrace and 
sometimes crime. Every saloon, as a result, was closed. 
The crowd was happy. 

But the speakers did not arrive. A wreck up the road 
would delay the train for hours. The result was most 
disappointing to those who really enjoyed good speak- 
ing; for many could not dance or take part in other 
amusements. 


16 THE MISSING PATRIOTS 

Some member of the committee asked Coleen if he 
would speak. “What,” he asked, pleased and yet 
alarmed, “why when I try to filter my thoughts through 
my lungs, I can’t even remember one of the presidents 
by name. I don’t know a bit more what to say than one 
of these miners — go get some person who has made a 
study of Fourth of July speeches.” 

The outcome was that he was forced to go on the 
platform, if only to satisfy those who wished to hear the 
afternoon address. He did not think he could speak five 
minutes. He did not like the job at all; but he went 
on the platform, nevertheless, and rushed blindly ahead 
by saying: “I’m not the speaker you sent for; but I am 
here with all the stage fright that is necessary for a 
greenhorn, and I have the ice pitcher.” 

The cheering was feeble. Coleen expected that. 
He waited a moment. 

No doubt you have at times been walking quietly 
along, not' really looking for anything; but of a sudden 
you saw a bright meteor flash its way across the dome 
of heaven. You wondered where it came from, what 
made it fall, where it went. It was one moment when 
you wondered just why that thing occurred. It was not 
a meteor that attracted Coleen, the lonely man who 
faced so many persons, some who would comprehend, 
others who could not even follow his language. But, 
well back in the crowd, he saw a face, the face of a 
young woman, so different from the rest, with her beauti- 
ful face poised, and eyes, maybe blue ones, gazing right 
into his own. The intelligence of that face, the look that 
swept across the distance between them, sympathetic, 
understanding, lovable, captivating, made the man recall 
that some place, somewhere at some time, he had heard 
that most forceful speakers single out a person in the 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 17 

crowd and address their speeches to that one person who 
gives promise of being an intelligent listener. 

John Coleen looked away; but the next instant he 
glanced back at the young woman and something swift, 
sure and purposeful played its mysterious part between 
the speaker and her. 

“What is it I can say to you who come here imbued 
with the solemnity and beauty of this day in our Nation’s 
history? Instead of speaking to you of the making of a 
nation, its laws, its countless plans for a better and more 
perfect government, I believe I shall talk to you as to 
a body of men and women who have a nation’s interest 
right at home where you each have your home, your in- 
terests, hopes, and many of you your business. To speak 
broadly of the nation’s welfare or to recall the old 
speeches of freedom and freedom’s cause or of our so- 
called independence, is harping on a well known theme 
which we have known for years. There is a pride 
which ought to come just as close to us, and I shall call 
it community pride of local patriotism.” 

He bowed to the resounding cheers and the wave of 
fluttering handkerchiefs. She, the one he meant to ad- 
dress neither cheered nor smiled. She encouraged him 
with that look. 

“Duty is a power,” he continued, “whether it is for the 
nation or rests right at home in ever so small a 
circle. It rises with us in the morning and goes to rest 
with us at night. It is co-extensive with the action of 
our intelligence. It is the shadow which cleaves with 
us, go where we will. 

“Let us do our duty in our shops, our kitchen, in the 
market, the street, the office, the farm, the school, the 
home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front 
ranks of some great battle and knew that victory for 
mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. 


18 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 


When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in 
the great army which achieves the welfare of the world. 

“It should be the slogan of every rural consumer to 
never send away for goods that he can just as well buy 
at home. Every time one of you consumers out there 
sends away for goods to a mail-order house that dollar, 
so far as your community is concerned, is practically out 
of circulation. Your home merchant is the one who 
helps keep up your schools, your churches and your 
town. He is the one who deserves your trade and not 
some catalog house in Chicago, New York or elsewhere. 

“Ah,” exclaimed the speaker, “I see you are inter- 
ested.” As indeed he did, for there were many present 
who dealt almost wholly with these mail-order houses. 
They were all attention, since they knew but one feature 
of the transaction and that was a vague one that meant 
merely the institutions of accommodation which, to 
many, were no accommodation either. So he continued : 
“The thousands of small cities and villages are more im- 
portant to the vitality of the Nation than its great cities. 
They render value to the products of the land in that 
they serve as the initial distributors, the most essential 
units of commerce which send on its way the com- 
modities that make the physical sustenance of the whole 
country, and in turn serve at that magnificent cohesive 
power which makes the Nation strong and self reliant. 

“The real menace to the smaller city and village is 
found in the mail-order system of purchase. If this 
system were to grow to its ultimate possibilities it would 
erase thousands of smaller population centers from the 
map. The large centers would serve the rural population 
with certain needs and the small town with its institu- 
tions of civilization, its beneficent, educational, civic and 
social influence would become a thing of the past. Stan- 
dards of intelligence would sink and the very stability 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 19 

and perpetuity of the Republic would be endangered. 
The small town performs a mission in the life of the 
Nation which cannot be minimized and which should 
become the earnest concern of students and statesmen 
and the guardians of human progress. 

“That consumer is both unfair and disloyal who sends 
to a distant mail-order house the very money paid him by 
the individual or collective local townsman, when these 
are equipped to serve his wants equally as well. He is 
justified in buying where he can buy most advanta- 
geously, but he is not justified in discriminating against 
the town that markets his services and his products, lends 
value to his property holdings and connects him and 
his family with the great life currents of the nation. 

“The prosperity of one section of the state indirectly 
affects all other sections. The prestige of the state, its 
material prosperity and all that makes for growth and 
development should become the concern of every citizen. 
Commerce knows no limitations except those fixed by 
price, quality, and transportation exigencies, but the man 
behind commerce can combine accepted principles in 
business with loyalty to community and state alike. 

“Those who live in the same commonwealth with us, 
who share the same tax burdens, and obey the same laws, 
are entitled to our good will and patronage, whenever 
such good will and patronage can be extended without 
a sacrifice of individual advantage. 

“It seems unbelievable, but it is a fact, and shows the 
entire lack of any sense of justice, that many persons 
regard their local stores as lesser institutions of accom- 
modation. When some of you have cash to spend, you 
know it goes to mail-order houses; but when times are 
dull, when you are sick, out of work, going through a 
strike and when farmers are not turning their produce 
into cash, where do they go for credit? You know they 


20 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 

can’t get it from a mail-order house, so they creep back 
to the merchants. You who do this know it is true; 
but I will give ten dollars to any man or woman in this 
crowd who can tell me that they ever received a favor 
from these strangers which was not paid for and paid in 
advance.” 

A loud shout went up. Coleen believed it came mostly 
from his advertisers. He was glad of it; but more than 
this that pleased him, was the apparent interest his un- 
patriotic talk had on these people, many who understood 
him better than they would an orator whose silvery 
discourse only waved a flag or boomed a cannon. 

“I know what it is to earn a dollar, my good fellows. 
I have seen the time when a dollar looked to me as large 
as the bottom of a dishpan, even larger. A dollar comes 
the hardest and goes the easiest of anything in existence. 
I’d like to see one dollar wander back from Chicago, 
New York or any other mail-order trade center that has 
gone from a farmer and returned — listen to this — TO 
HIS SON. 

“Kiss the dollar good-bye and mortgage the farm. 

“Did any of you ever write to a catalog house and 
ask for credit? Did you get it? Those concerns 
must have cash, must have it in advance, must have it 
even before you see the goods you buy. The consumer 
sends his money and sits down and waits until the mail- 
order house gets good and ready to fill his order. But 
when people want favors or credit of any kind, they 
hustle to their home merchant. Did the plow arrive on 
time? Possibly not. Was the gas-engine broken when 
it arrived? It was. You were months waiting for the 
necessary adjustment to repair it. What of the wooden 
pump that came without the handle; of the milk sepa- 
rator that did not work properly; of the furniture which 
deluded you and your good wife? And, oh, tell us, you 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 


21 


who are devotees of the look-like-silk dresses, what did 
you think of the royal rag that came to you, when ex- 
pectations were so high, and you were ashamed of the 
thing?” 

A titter was heard which swelled into good-natured 
laughter. He knew there were female offenders in the 
crowd. He looked at the woman whose interested atten- 
tion inspired him to speak the truth, though he lacked 
everything convincing in oratory. He knew he was 
telling the truth, so he told it easily and convincingly. 

“I came from the West, from a city where it would 
make your very hearts ache to see the worshippers we 
had there to the god of Mammon. I can’t describe the 
countless tragedies that occurred in high society where 
the mad rush went on for style and supremacy. I have 
known men to go down in their own titanic fight to sup- 
port the wives who first were flattered to be the recipients 
of their husbands’ generosity, then abused it to get the 
tawdry jewels to bewitch and ensnare other men. It was 
war, cruel, death-dealing; but I tell you honestly it is 
not a bit worse, this money scheme, than what we have 
right in our midst when parents, father and mother, 
send their money away from this community, robbing 
it, robbing their children and all without promise of its 
return for future generations. I have seen it worked all 
over this country, and I have yet to find one community 
which is not the poorer for the experiment; and, further- 
more, I have found towns as dead as hay fields after your 
harvest, when the money was gone and the towns were 
lifeless. 

“All sunshine makes the desert. A smooth sea never 
makes a skillful mariner, neither does uninterrupted suc- 
cess make a prosperous town. 

“This community thinks and lives and believes only 
in coal. You know the richness and the fertility of the 


22 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 


field; but you don’t consider that big powers can and 
often do close the only industry you have that really 
brings fresh money into this community. 

“I am, in a sense, a stranger here. I see that coal is 
the hub around which most of your business revolves. 
But for goodness’ sake, and the sake of these children, 
and the pride of this spot on the dear old earth, don’t 
put all your thoughts on coal. That industry may close 
down tomorrow, leaving every mine as silent as a tomb 
for months to come. We are even expecting it. In the 
land of the free, with all its promise and hopes, why put 
all our flags in one place? Think of your location; 
think of your sons and daughters who, in time, can de- 
velop this location into one of the most thriving cities 
along the Ohio Valley. We are on the railroad; we are 
not far distant from the river — it is just around the 
bend; we are above the flood line and I have thought 
ever since I came here of the great possibility of steel 
mills, factories and the like which can be brought here, 
simply because you have the location. The place in 
this respect is ideal. 

“So when we get together and talk of freedom, or 
groan with seeming environment, I think the real pa- 
triotic thing to do is not to bemoan possible mine strikes; 
but prepare for future industries, something as great 
which brings more people here, establishing that power 
which comes with the masses. 

“The reason I urge this is because of my strong belief 
in the well-known phrase, ‘As goes the city, so goes the 
world.’ 

“The great cities are necessarily cosmopolitan. They 
are the epitome of the social world. All the belts of civ- 
ilization intersect along their avenues. They contain the 
products of every mortal zone. They are cosmopolitan, 
not only in a national but in a moral and spiritual sense. 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 23 

“The rush and whirl of the city intensifies all natural 
tendencies of man. From its fomented energies, as well 
as from its greater weight of numbers, the city controls. 
Just as this place controls something in a way; but is 
allowing it to slip away, to deaden Garthage, the cradle 
of industry. 

“I don’t believe one little bit in that idea that what 
is to be, will be. I’d like to know where in creation all 
of us would be if we crammed that idea into our heads. 
It is a lock on the wheel of intelligent progress. I do 
not admire a gambler who goes into business to rob you; 
but off comes my hat to the one who said : ‘Life consists 
in taking chances.’ Providence has instilled into the 
brain and heart of man the betting instinct. I regard 
the mail-order house as a sort of gambling house where 
every man, woman or child is going to get the true gam- 
bler’s ill turn at some time. It is interesting but dis- 
heartening to watch you consumers trying to keep pace 
with these houses. Some of you will believe me, and 
I dare say others will have the Angel of Doubt, hovering 
near, whispering warnings to the fascinated buyer, but 
you had better listen to the god of Chance right here 
at home. 

“I believe this platform will afford far more pleasure 
to the dancers than my unprepared speech will delight 
my hearers; but when I think of freedom on this day, 
I don’t try to think of the freedom that was purchased 
with widows’ tears and orphans’ cries, or the wealth of 
the nation; but I do think of what freedom means and 
what liberty is to the intelligent. 

“Many good men and women in this crowd came to 
this country to find freedom, liberty and money. It 
is here; but they must take chances with other con- 
ditions, study them and be with local interests as much 
as with the whole nation which many of you adopted 


24 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 


for your home. Those little foreigners, the merry chil- 
dren innocently playing over there in that field, will be 
your men and women of tomorrow. America is foreign 
made at best. So I say why scatter them broadcast, 
when it is possible to concentrate business on one spot 
and keep it; but not without hard work, ambition, many 
disappointments and some natural hinderance from 
people whose heads contain nothing but eyeholes! Keep- 
ing together like a big family is my pet idea of doing 
all that stands for the real patriotic feeling. I could 
talk on this subject until Doomsday; for this is a sub- 
ject I have studied and one which I frequently discuss in 
my newspaper work; but I won’t talk longer, only I 
hope the little I have said will redound to your interests 
and the growing town of Garthage.” 

Coleen saw several men in the committee coming to- 
ward the platform. With them was the woman who 
held his attention throughout the scattered talk he had 
given them. 

They were introduced. 

Natalie Neugart was the singer of the afternoon! 

Ah, he knew she was not one of them. He might 
have known! Blended with the divine harmony of 
several string instruments, played by the Italians, the 
singer’s voice, clear, deep and soul-saving, went out to 
those men, women and children, drawing them invisibly 
closer and closer to the great and good God whose chil- 
dren they were. That voice could save souls. It had 
saved souls. It was a gift from God, its purity and 
melody would ever ascend to the beneficent Giver of 
song. 

Coleen did not look at her. He bowed his head. He 
felt the call of something that makes all men pray some- 
time in the journey of life. He listened and as he did 
so, there came to his lonely heart a maddening desire 


THE MISSING PATRIOTS 


25 


for that subtle something that brings to every man the 
fullest, richest gift in life, the love and help of the right 
woman whose soul is attuned unto the spiritual. He had 
never known it. Possibly he never would; but after the 
songs had ceased, and the girl went away with her 
friends, and the clang, noise and confusion of their dif- 
ferent noisy demonstrations, deafened and delighted, 
Coleen could not appreciate one word of all that he 
had said, true as he had been, for something else had 
stirred him, because he was feeling a sense of guilt in 
his soul for wanting what was not his, and which he had 
no right to covet. 


CHAPTER IV 

CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 

M EDIUM tall, slim, her graceful figure well de- 
fined under her blue dress, Natalie was singing 
one of those Italian songs which calls up some far distant 
fairyland and unknown caresses beneath a romantic 
moon, kisses for which her very lips were thirsty. But 
the scene was not beneath Italian skies, only the har- 
mony of soul expression came from there; since her 
thoughts were with a man she had met only the day 
before. 

That man was Coleen, editor of a weekly. 

The editor at the time was seated in his office. That 
office was as hot as the hinges thereof. His roof was 
like a burning-glass and every whiff that came in at 
his open windows was as wild heat waves from red hot 
metal. 

Despite the oppression of the day, he wanted to work 
for the outing he had enjoyed the day before had filled 
his brain with fresh ideas. Never before had he real- 
ized so fully the importance of his own work, or its 
significance to the general public. Many plans of the 
past were not fruitful; but he was not the man to believe 
that chance had fled when luck fell dead. He knew his 
wits could win in his own game. And he sincerely hoped 
there were years full of days just as good as the ones he 
had lived. 

He was not thinking of the singer in the woods! He 
had forgotten her song! Yesterday was but a vague 
kingdom of events, if it was to include his sentimental 
nature. Rich, ripe and powerful was his capacity for 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 27 

love; but the merciless hot sun that turned his office 
into a small inferno was not luring him to thoughts of 
any woman; though he had the keenest ambition to think 
and write. Good nature is more than a time saver, since 
it frequently gives the necessary zip to a man’s jaded 
spirit, spurring him on to greater achievement. And 
Coleen laughed good naturedly as he banged back the 
lid of his desk. 

That very morning while cleaning out his trunk, de- 
stroying letters, papers and useless articles which even 
a man will save, he re-read a letter. One remark 
alone came to him at the moment when he pushed up 
the roll of his desk, ready to adjust his typewriter before 
him. The same sentence had glared at him before. 
When first he read it, it was as if seeing a sign written 
with fire on a calm evening sky. It was from his wife: 
“You have reached your level — you’ve quit trying.” 

Was she correct? He thought not. Because he had 
demonstrated a capacity for judgment and tact, surely 
no labor for the cause of humanity, be it ever so menial, 
could be wholly wrong. It was not because she had 
written the term. He knew she had never conceived 
the idea; that it was caught as one of her father’s acid 
expressions; so he let it go, knowing that it was only a 
part of the power against him, of no grave concern. 

For a minute his good nature reflected bitterly on that 
particular man who had hurled the expression at his 
daughter. He talked to her and ever had, even as he 
had stung every associate in the office, as he had tried 
and failed, when reviling the husband of his daughter. 
Ves, Julia was quoting her father. 

At the time the torrent of abuse had fallen on Coleen, 
publicly before many subordinates in the office, he 
wheeled, clenched his fists and reached for a chair to 


28 CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 

steady himself, thought better and walked closer to his 
father-in-law. 

“You are the failure,” he said, much calmer than he 
thought he could speak the few words. “These boys, 
these reporters, these hard-working girls, may mistake 
your impertinence as a manifestation of superiority. 
Your pomposity doesn’t blind me! You haven’t an idea 
in your head that wasn’t created by some money-making 
machine gang that paid you to accept and publish if!” 

It all came back as he sat in his office — the man who 
attempted to drag him out of the office. Then Coleen 
laughed as he recalled how he had whirled on the puny 
reporter, then shoved him down a flight of steps. It 
wasn’t the man he wanted to throw down the steps; 
but it applied the monkey-wrench to the safety-valve of 
his emotions and saved him from thrashing his father- 
in-law. 

He knew, did this Coleen, the man of brains in the 
mining town, that what a man publishes in his newspaper 
is not necessarily his own individual thought. Often they 
are the prepared articles written by fools who sit under 
the dome at Washington, ready to crucify a nation at the 
toss of a hat. There are men in power from center to cir- 
cumference of the globe and what to them is of greater 
importance than the very medium of the press for much 
of their nefarious work? A nation might writhe in an 
agony of blood and but few, if any, of our selfish congress- 
men would lift their hands to save. Sovereignty of power 
meant money. Money at any trick was the game. Cit- 
izenship sometimes becomes a fanatic thing; but some- 
how or other some of the world’s fanatics are men who 
have put their shoulders to the wheel. 

Coleen put fresh paper into his machine. He turned 
to his assistant and local correspondent, Miss Sneddon, 
“You may go,” he said to the tired girl. “We have 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 29 

enough copy for this week’s issue. It is too hot in here.” 
Coleen’s mind was like a busy bee laden with choicest 
pollen from a clover patch. He did not wish to be in- 
terrupted. A man who wishes to think and is interrupted 
in his most sublime thoughts, frequently wishes he had 
been bom a fisherman or mender of umbrellas, instead 
of a fellow with an elusive thought that never returns! 

He wrote and wrote. A thunder shower cooled the 
air. His typewriter clicked and clacked along its noisy 
way, interspersed by the muffled sound of “Hello, hello, 
hello,” the never-ceasing call of a telephone operator in 
the back room of his office. 

He pulled the last sheet from the machine, bunched 
them together. It would be an editorial, he planned, pro- 
viding the article suited him after he read it. He usually 
allowed his editorials to cool over night, then frequently 
destroyed them. He changed his tactics. He began 
reading what the townspeople were to read Friday night 
Certainly it was not even an attempt at superior author- 
ship — nothing but familiar assertions which an ordinary 
person could easily comprehend if he read it. 

Charlie Holmes, always called Charles by his wife, and 
Buzz by the public, tilted his chair to the proper angle, 
hoisted his feet to his desk, and read his own advertise- 
ment in the week’s paper. The cut of the piano showed 
up fine; the reading matter was all right; it looked nifty 
he thought and that was rather unusual before this paper 
blew into the town. 

He turned to the editorials and smiled as he read the 
leading head, “Men Who Rob Themselves.” He won- 
dered if Brewster, the ticket agent, had robbed the till. 
He had learned that the young fellow was soon to marry. 
The reader was not thinking of more important affairs, 
but he read, 

“No town can grow and prosper if its citizens engage 


30 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 


in the gentle pastime of figuratively cutting each other’s 
throats. It ought not to be necessary to support this 
statement with argument; but to change the metaphor, 
there are so many small towns, like Garthage, where the 
poison of discord has done its work that the subject is 
one upon which a trade sermon may be preached weekly 
with profit. 

“We don’t have cut-throats in Garthage that are known 
as such. There may be some who practice it in private. 
However, we do have cut-throats in this country who 
probably get their victims right out of this town. 

“ ‘As we sow, so shall we reap’ describes the causation 
of a natural law as immutable and effective in producing 
results as the law of gravity. 

“Garthage must be awakened. It must hear its call 
of duty. We don’t want to go back into old history; we 
want to make history. We have no intention of filling 
hide bags with sour cream and running over the country 
with them on horses’ backs to churn our butter. We 
have no use for candles where electric lights are needed. 
We go to the faucet and not the old-fashioned well. Our 
women do not drag the plowshare as does the slave 
woman, nor draw the peet wagons from Ireland’s bogs. 

“We are not living in log cabin days; but we are 
slipping back, back, back into the ooze and slime of in- 
difference, ignorance, and worse than all, neglect. 

“Now listen. I call attention to the impure water 
we have in this town. Practically every residence well 
excepting those situated on the hills, must necessarily 
contain surface water, owing to location, and that, as 
you know, breeds every disease on the face of God’s 
earth. Last year you had an epidemic of scarlet fever, 
typhoid, diptheria, measles, and in yonder lowly cem- 
etery is to be found the pathetic result. 

“Death came quickly here, so I have been told. I 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 


31 


was not a citizen of the town at the time. But that 
Terror came to rich and poor, American, Slav, Polish, 
Italian, where mother’s hearts were warm with the love 
of little children’s arms. In some homes the baby boy 
was taken over to the lonely cemetery and the hearse 
returned to Garthage often to the very same house — to 
a doubly-distressed home. Whole families of children 
died. This is as fresh in your memories today as it was 
last August, when Hell would mean no terror to those 
who lived and suffered through that period of black- 
stricken Garthage, and the loss of whole families! 

“I say rise from it, get busy! Be strong for brother- 
hood and fellowship! 

“I think this town could well support a Community 
House. But first of all, what we want are men of mind, 
principle, determination to combine for the purpose of 
the uplift. 

“What think you of men in whose hands is the keeping 
of your very hearts’ interests, who seldom if ever are in 
session, who use as little money as is possible to defray 
certain expenses and none for improvement? Isn’t this 
being done? You know the men in office, their sworn 
duty, what they are there for. While some do their duty, 
you can’t truthfully say that all are doing it. Bonded 
officers are deaf, dumb and blind. 

“I have no quarrel with any man in this town. I have 
a feeling of resentment against the abuse this town suf- 
fers, stricken and damned as it has been from the very 
day the hog-engine came here twenty-five years ago and 
snouted its way through yonder rock-ribbed hill to make 
a railroad tunnel. There have been crimes innumerable 
against every good cause. Garthage is not as old as the 
railroad; its crimes began with life. 

“We have good, loyal, splendid men and women right 
here, the kind who make a city or town worth while. 


32 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 


As I have remarked before, we also have the location for 
greater achievements; but we must have the spirit to 
fight. 

“Monday night of this week I dropped in at the school 
board meeting. I may have thought I was down at 
Dokey’s saloon; or in the pool room. I knew I wasn’t in 
a church; for men may spit their tobacco juice between 
the church seats; but not many will spit half way up the 
wall as they do in our council chamber. Gentlemen 
expectorate in vessels for the purpose. Our post-office 
demonstrates the abuse of tobacco. 

“I have gone into that council room ever since coming 
here. I have taken an interest, as a citizen, in what is 
as much to me as yourselves. The other night the real 
meeting was in the Mayor’s private office. Our Chief 
had the only chair and our august body of men straggled 
in one at a time, sat around the Chief like so many 
tailors, squatted on the dirty floor. 

“The principal topic was that of displacing Mr. Pen- 
nington, our school superintendent. He has received his 
notice as we now know. I was strong for Mr. Penning- 
ton, a man of culture, education, refinement, a brain 
power who has done wonders for this place. Prejudice 
was strongly against him, prejudice coming from three 
saloon-keepers, a dentist, druggist and prosperous trades- 
man, coatless, collarless citizens who are all back pedal- 
ing. 

“What is it for? 

“When we associate with some men it is to rise to their 
heights or sink to their level? Are we now going to rise to 
the sublime heights of these gentlemen, the saloon-keepers 
in power, the dentist and others, sans coats, vests and 
ambition, or jail to the disgraceful depths by making a 
selection of linen collared citizens who hold meetings in 
respectable quarters and don't appropriate a dollar 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 33 

apiece for every meeting held? All right, perhaps, if 
they even did some good. 

“I have told itl 

“We went over to Charlie’s saloon to conclude our 
business affairs. Some drank; others did not. We all 
ate sandwiches and assorted pickles. At ten o’clock the 
question came up for discussion : ‘What teachers to elect 
for the September school term?’ 

“To the honorable citizens of this town, once more 
I beg your attention. I shall not expose the certain ones 
who read those letters of application, nor tell you the 
remarks made concerning the pictures of these splendid 
young women who apply for our schools. I can only say 
that never in all my reportorial work in America, and I 
have visited the vilest dives on this continent have I heard 
anything so low, more degrading, or disgraceful than the 
remarks of some officers of your honorable school-board. 
I only say that if some of these men were known, to- 
morrow they would be gone, and gone so far that God 
’Imighty wouldn’t even look for them! 

“We have this to contend with and a blemish to wipe 
out against pure and beautiful womanhood, the mental 
instructors of the children you put in their charge. 

“You also have a monster to fight in this mail-order 
trade that is creeping on you day and night. But what is 
the use of telling what is to be fought if there are not 
enough dependable men with grit and determination to 
come into the fight? 

“Without dispute Garthage is the dirtiest, most unkept 
town I ever entered. It does not have to be this way. 
We can make it not only properous but beautiful; ed- 
ucate the young to mental efficiency and usefulness; 
transform this scarred old hill and valley into something 
besides a reeking, beer-smelling hole, or a death valley 
dealing mostly with innocent babes. We can fight the 


34 CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 

mail-order traffic, not single handed, but all together. 
We must support our churches, schools and town. We 
cannot get this from a mail-order house. We cannot 
live* alone. The farmer is with us and must be our 
brother-in-trade. We need him as he needs us. Why not 
make this town a cash register? 

“If we have no man in this town who wishes to vol- 
unteer for the position, I strongly advise bringing here 
a man who has made community prosperity a study. 
We have students and men of unquestioned ability for it. 
This is being demonstrated wherever prosperity gains a 
footing. But so long as we think a few thousands in 
this town are but camp followers, following every freshly 
opened mine, leaving the old ones during the strikes, I 
say such followers are blind, ignorant, indifferent, living 
from hand to mouth, gaining nothing, getting nothing, 
living in squalor, filth and degradation until the final call. 
You can’t be a camp follower all the days of your life. 
Remember the tumble bug that rolls his home along the 
dusty cowpath. His breeding place is a ball of filth. He 
is an example of the unenlightened camp follower. One 
hobby in Ohio, the land of hardwood lumber, gas, auto- 
mobiles, steel and iron factories, glassware, pottery — 
everything. 

“I may provoke some of you by this plain, uneditorial 
ramble of thoughts. But men, women, I see it, you know 
it, and why must it continue? You want what you spend 
your money for; but so long as your existence and very 
life are drifting along in this manner, you know as well 
as I, that you are being robbed, that you are having your 
throats cut, and you know who is cutting them” 

Charlie Holmes dropped his paper. “Good Lord,” he 
exclaimed, “that truthful cynic will have daylight put 
through him before he is a day older! But it’s the truth, 


CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 35 

the plain, unvarnished, gilt-edged, double-twisted truth, 
though it will kill him as sure as frost kills crickets!” 

Holmes continued reading the editorial. 

“This is exactly what will happen to Garthage if the 
people patronize the big city stores and catalog houses 
to the neglect of our own efficient dealers. We have 
good stores, best grade quality of goods, honorable men 
conducting them, men who trust you and carry you 
through many strikes when hardships are strangling you 
to death. These men : many of them, came here to con- 
duct honorable legitimate trade; but you can’t keep up 
trade, citizenship and business interest if you will send 
to catalog houses for what our own merchants have to 
offer at the same price, often cheaper. 

“You know the big city benefits and the small com- 
munity loses. What excuse can a man advance for 
this disloyalty? 

“What return is given by the big city merchant or the 
catalog house for this trade? None, and none is ex- 
pected. 

“They just exchange their goods for the money; never 
money for the product of any town, not even Garthage. 

“Considering all these facts, why would it not be good 
business to give the local merchants an opportunity to 
compete with the big dealers? 

“If given the chance, they can do it. Just make your 
wants known and see how readily the goods of any grade 
will be forthcoming. They, not yourselves, run the risk. 
They may even trust you. Many of them do. 

“Give your local merchants a chance to figure. 

“In a community where there are various industries 
properly balanced, by production and consumption, and 
where the controlling medium of exchange — credit — is 
on a firm and sound basis, the products of a community 
are easily disposed of; prosperity and property values 


36 CARNIVAL OF HUMAN EVENTS 

increase, and the community and its people are happy 
and satisfied. 

“Do not think because we have just a small city it 
is no trade center. There isn’t a better one in the whole 
of this beautiful valley. Every trade center and 
center of population is a business unit, the residents 
of which depend largely upon one another for strength 
and sustenance. Their interests are mutual. 

“But take from that community its principal element 
of strength, its credit, the effect would be inevitable, a 
weakening of the unit of strength. 

“We have some men and women in this town who would 
make strong, useful, necessary factors in building this 
town into a city of worthwhileness. Unfortunately many 
of them are too busy with home duties, their own busi- 
ness, or that of others, to do it all. They must have 
support. Taking care of one’s own town cannot be done 
quietly, not a bit more than sitting still and not crying 
‘fire, fire, fire’ when your building is burning.” 

The piano dealer threw down his paper. He shook his 
head. “At any rate, old boy,” he ejaculated heartily, 
“your head is level on this topic. I just know Helen 
Kerr would prefer a highly polished street piano to one 
of my very best ones, if only the thing came from Chi- 
cago. It’s queer; but just the same it isn’t the men — 
why, it’s mostly the women who are offenders.” 

In this respect, he was certainly telling the truth. 


CHAPTER V 

NEW DISCOVERIES. 

T HE day the paper was issued John Coleen drove to 
Brannon, a town north of Garthage, but holding no 
mining interests. The town was more than a hundred 
years old. Here the people had married and intermar- 
ried, and an attempt was made to ever classify real 
aristocracy from ordinary riffraff, just as it is done in 
New York City, only Brannon left the selection to the 
word of the Lord as planned by Presbyterian or Method- 
ist, which ever were in the ascendency. 

These simple folk knew nothing of the world. No rail- 
road whistle sounded within its border; no opera house 
offered an attraction to lure their youths to eternal de- 
struction; never would a Methodist father permit a 
daughter to lean on the arm of any man and dance to 
music that made her very soul throb with just the lure 
of music. True, once in a while a daughter managed 
to get to a dance; a son learned how to play cards in 
the stable and hide his bottles in the hay mow; but it 
wasn’t often that anything very serious occurred. 
One thing was as sure as death: if a strange man 
came to town and was good-looking, whether he had 
money or character, he could manage to spend the 
evening with some nice girl. Men were so scarce, (their 
own youths having embarked to distant shores) there to 
get within the velvet ropes of dazzling cafes with gayer 
girlhood, that Brannon girls would — flirt. Well, maybe 
not brazenly; but they managed to do it socially, some- 
how. Heaven is a witness to its mystery, but that was 
their only offense. 


38 


NEW DISCOVERIES 


Coleen got into the town early in the day. It had been 
a pleasant ride over the picturesque road which is up and 
down hill, through ferny nooks that smell cool and sweet 
when shadowed in the morning and send back the whiff 
of a thousand sun-kissed flowers. Much of the road is 
shaded, though here and there he found long spaces 
where heat waves were vibrant as from a brazier. 

He went his way. In the afternoon, crowds of gay, 
animated girls were walking on the street or sitting in 
very pretty old-fashioned yards, making embroidery or 
laces. A few tennis courts were seen. He had noticed 
the coy looks of several girls. Instinctively he knew the 
reason for the mid-summer blandishment. In a way he 
felt like going back into the old game, of giving look for 
look; but he had always held the idea that to attract 
attention without intention — was just another way of 
lying, and be had never flirted at all in his life. He had 
attracted attention, done it a thousand times; but 
always for an honorable purpose, as a man aims to please 
his audience. And every newspaper man uses the whole 
wide world for his audience. 

He walked on, thinking of a couple he had met while 
stopping at a farm house. They were Norwegians, they 
told him. The man was sick. He had been a big, strong 
fellow, full of life and vigor. He was stricken with 
serious illness and his wife did the work which they 
could find no help to do. 

He listened to the quiet way in which she told him 
how she had worked on the farm, driving the team, 
plowing, hoeing, harvesting some crops and selling others. 
She was a proud looking girl-woman, deep chested, strong 
as an animal and as beautiful. Her golden hair was sun- 
burned as were her face, arms and hands; but it had not 
marred the physical loveliness of the woman who had 
given all she could, her physical self, to aid her husband. 


NEW DISCOVERIES 39 

This, as compared with the women he knew who were 
burden makers and not burden bearers, shamed most 
womankind. 

As they talked, Katrina, their only child came out 
on the vine-clad porch. One could easily see the health, 
beauty and promise in this child of well mated parents. 
Her honest blue eyes were as beautiful as her mother’s 
deep ones and the body as shapely as health ever 
promises. Two soft little white hands clasped the 
mother’s left wrist, and her shy fair head rested against 
her mother’s arm. Katrina had much before her. Her 
father would get well and such couples prosper. They 
want to succeed. 

He returned home in the afternoon, going by another 
road, even more picturesque, with finer views of magnif- 
icent farms, lying to the north and east. There were 
deserted labyrinths and cool retreats in the valley before 
him, or hillside farmland with modern houses of finest 
architecture. A small but rapid creek tumbled and 
flowed through the very middle of the scene before him, 
widening at places into what must be fishing pools or 
swimming holes. He could not determine their size from 
his point of view. He imagined his vision must carry at 
least a hundred miles to the horizon, the air was so 
clear. 

His meditation was cut short by a voice saying: 

“Why Mr. Coleen, good afternoon!” 

He drew rein on his horse. 

Before him stood Natalie Neugart, the girl singer, 
pretty, radiant, girlishly wholesome in a simple dress 
of some summery fabric. She was the very picture of 
Summer personified. 

He reached out his hand to take hers, a small soft 
hand made to be held. He looked at her admiringly, 
then dropped the toy he held. 


40 


NEW DISCOVERIES 


“I am going home; but tell me where did you come 
from? I haven’t seen you since you — since I — oh, since 
we stared at each other!” He explained it awkwardly 
enough. 

She laughed musically. “I am going home and it is a 
whole long mile from here. I was out walking. Of course 
I shall ride home with you. I should have been home 
hours and hours ago; but I am a regular wanderlust in 
the summer.” 

“Do you mean to say you live in the country?” 

“Why, of course. My father is a farmer. I have no 
mother, nothing but Susan and Tony and others, you 
know. I’m the only child; but I am a farmer too and not 
ashamed of it.” 

“Ashamed?” he bantered easily, “I should say not. 
You are many things, singer, farmer and — I don’t know 
what else, but I dare say quite a nice little butterfly 
girl.” 

Every feature of her little face, in its frame of red- 
brown hair, her low Grecian forehead, her big blue eyes, 
her small nose and rather full mouth was pretty, though- 
she was not really beautiful as he imagined her to be 
when viewed at a greater distance. 

And Natalie, motherless, who was bom for love, was 
as eager for it as ever were the girls of Brannon. But 
she was — different. You always find difference in girls 
who have or have not gone to first class colleges. And 
Natalie had. She studied music at a college for women 
in West Virginia. 

She was telling him of this school where her teacher 
was a secluded Patti, who had vowed that the voice 
which God had given to her should be given back to Him. 

“And I — why I pray to have a voice like hers,” she 
added confidentially. “Do you think I shall attain my 
wish?” 


NEW DISCOVERIES 


41 


“With a voice like yours and such perfect faith in 
God, I guess you’ll get it. I want you to.” He smiled 
kindly. 

He looked away from her. He was not caring for her 
voice. He respected the hallowed wish in her simple life, 
not yet full, because of its lack of love. 

The dainty singer seemed very much embarrassed at 
the effect her confession had had, and tried to justify 
her remark by saying: “You know I have to have some- 
thing. I do get so lonely in the country, and I would 
not tell papa for all the world.” 

She bewitched him. 

We men and women of the world call it another name: 
Wise men say such women save them; and Jealousy flips 
her head, breathing “demoralizing” on the poisoned at- 
mosphere. 

Unurged by the master hand (to make more rapid 
strides,) the horse walked slower and slower. Following 
a natural inclination to rest and nip grass, he turned into 
a grassy spot beneath a huge tree and stopped. 

Though each noticed what had happened, neither 
cared. They talked as only friends can talk. He 
listened most of the time. It was like finding a new 
heaven to listen to the fresh sweet, simple ideas of this 
girl with her healthy, wholesome logic and good sense. 
She was too pretty to be intellectual; and too smart to 
be dull or uninteresting. Her mental attitude was al- 
most childlike, though she frequently used a woman’s 
logic in making her point. 

For a long time he looked away, over into the distance, 
now denser and cooler than his former view. What 
would be a night in this place with that sky full of stars ? 
How would yon pool be on a moonlight night, with this 
girl by his side? 

“I must go,” he exclaimed suddenly. He picked up 


42 


NEW DISCOVERIES 


the reins, drew them between his gloved fingers, then 
dropped them as he saw the look of disappointment spread 
over her face. No, she was not coy like the girls of 
Brannon; but she wanted him to stay a little longer. 

And he did stay. 

He wanted a minute to himself to quiet the cursed 
suggestions that went wildly through him. He wanted 
to kiss her. He wanted to take her in both arms and 
draw her close to his whole body, to feel her little self 
cuddled in arms that would want nothing more of God 
than to hold her eternally and forever in love’s embrace. 
She was the woman he could kneel down by and pray 
to his God. She was the one who surely could mold his 
life, (as every right woman can, to a certain degree, 
help some man.) Oh! his kisses against her kisses, al- 
ways her kisses, in spite of everything! 

Just as quietly as a father kissing a little daughter 
good night, he turned his face to hers, tilted her chin 
and softly kissed her. 

It was his first offense against his vow to God. He 
had lied to God, to Julia and even to the baby boy at 
home. 

Why didn’t she mock his tenderness? Why did she 
not say something? Why did her warm hands reach up 
and draw his face to her own lips? They did! Then 
as if something bade her ask the question, she looked 
very startled and whispered: 

“Oh, are you married?” 

He could lie. Most men would. He wanted to. The 
faithful eyes looking up into his own, tenderly awaited 
his reply. 

To save his soul he could not tell her. Shame, worse 
than ten thousand harpies from the Unknown, screamed 
vengeance at him for stealing a young girl’s love and 


NEW DISCOVERIES 43 

caresses. That she liked him he had known from the 
minute their eyes met that day in the woods. 

He threw his arms around her and his head he held 
close beneath her head, just above her breast, her head 
thrown a little back. Quivering and shaking in her arms, 
in the storm of passion that fairly terrorized him, he 
only shook his head. 

With both hands she lifted his head. His eyes were 
moist with tears. Then, as if the girl came out of a 
perfect maze, she threw back her head and said, “My 
God, my God, you are married 1” 

He drove on to her house. They even talked, but not 
of anything in particular. She got down at the gate 
without his assistance. He wanted to help her, but she 
hastily got away. Then she looked up with a pitiful 
smile and spoke: 

“It was my fault, perhaps. You know I have no 
mother. I am always hungry for love and I like you.” 

“And I love you, Natalie. Someday I shall tell you 
how much and I won’t see you until I can tell you. 
But my kiss was a kiss of love, the sweetest I have ever 
known, so don’t worry, little sweetheart I will make it 
all right.” 

But how can a married man make it all right when 
he abuses the confidence of a trusting, simple-hearted 
girl? Maybe he meant it. He certainly did. But he 
wondered how he could go back to Garthage and hide 
that black spot on his heart. Such men as those wEo 
go without collars and cuffs and steal the public’s money, 
were thoroughbred gentlemen to his way of thinking, 
to the man who kissed a motherless girl whose only 
weakness was for the tenderness and affection she had 
missed and was missing. 

It was late when he entered Garthage. 

That night when leaving his office, Coleen was shot 


44 


NEW DISCOVERIES 


by some unknown would-be-assassin. He fell face down- 
ward without even a sound. The men who picked him 
up said he was dead. 


CHAPTER VI 

COMING EVENTS. 

W HEN Coleen next opened his eyes he wondered 
where he was. He looked from a window, saw the 
dense foliage of trees and could smell the odor of petunias. 
Then he slept again, quietly and without pain. When 
again he opened his eyes, he saw the Polish priest sitting 
by the window, reading a paper. The fine old face 
was like a priceless cameo. 

“Where am I?” asked Coleen. 

“Well, well, I see you are awake. You are at my 
house; but please don’t talk — instructions of the doctors, 
you know. The hotel was no place for you and we could 
not take you to the hospital. You were shot, you know. 
No, no, no, please don’t talk. My sister, who is my 
housekeeper, and I are taking care of you.” 

“I’m not a Catholic,” whispered Coleen. 

“Certainly not, certainly not,” smiled the priest; “but 
you are a brother in God’s sight and it was just as much 
my duty to care for you when you needed it, as for one 
of my faith and church. Don’t talk — another time.” 

The quiet repose of the spotless room, neither hot nor 
cool, quiet and peaceful, was, after all just what the 
sick man most needed. But with the return of conscious- 
ness, came a mortal sting that hurt him worse than 
the wound. The miserable act of his homeward trip 
came back to him, lashing him with a thousand stripes, 
making welts on the soul if not the body. 

“That little, little girl,” he meditated, “a child and 
a woman, more child than woman, hopeful, trusting, 


46 COMING EVENTS 

expectant of all the world holds for her in its love and 
promise.” 

Always had he despised men who took advantage of 
innocence or ignorance. He did not like to think of 
that moment of physical weakness, coupled with his 
starved life, that he, of all men, had been no better than 
the ones he had ever condemned for this abuse against 
the love of a woman, any good woman. 

Then, with a sigh, he thought of his wife, Julia, the 
wife of his youth, the mother of his boy; but strange to 
say, she seemed very, very far away. He no longer 
thought or wondered just where she was. The boy was 
a dim picture, each fading gradually from view, dimmer 
and dimmer, and both replaced by the face of a young 
woman, looking up into his face, pleading her cause 
through the cry of wanting affection. 

He wanted Natalie. He vowed he would never see 
her until he could do so honorably. Yet as he thought 
of her at this moment, he knew that, if he were well, the 
chances were he might see her. See her he would! 

As the editor recovered slowly in the tranquil home 
of the aged priest there was much time for careful med- 
itation. For one thing, it was certainly a privilege to 
be associated with a man whose liberal education made 
him a most delightful companion during those days 
when the sick man was lonely and discouraged. Many 
times had Father Jarenski smilingly told of incidents in 
his own life, particularly those lived during his boyhood 
days, in Poland, when life to him had been seen through 
rosy glasses. He wanted to write — to write lyrics — 
and there was a desire to paint pictures of beautiful 
women. Many had been the calls to play tragedy to an 
appreciative audience; then came the holy role, the noble 
one of saving men’s souls. He had reached the place 
Where no man values too highly the standards of sue- 


COMING EVENTS 47 

cess and excellence. They were matters of long ago to 
the aged priest, tottering down the sunset hill of life to- 
ward Eternity — and Eternity is so long! 

“Yes,” answered Coleen one day when the subject was 
taking an almost pessimistic turn, “you know the largest 
part of a man’s power is latent. We all beget expecta- 
tions that are not performed. I have an idea, possibly 
the wrong one; but an idea for the betterment of living 
conditions; and I hold that we must direct our lives that 
way or we are not much more than mere chunking.” 

We know that the reverberation is longer than the 
thunder-clap. It was true in the condition that made 
the present environment for the editor. He was able to 
return to his duties ; but it was in a different atmosphere ; 
not the clear pure atmosphere lately charged with light- 
ning, but dense with choking powder from a close range 
battle. He was not wanted ! 

He went to his desk, threw back the lid, adjusted his 
typewriter. Alone, undaunted, unafraid, he looked from 
the idle keys to the inanimate objects in a depressingly 
quiet office. His thoughts went straight to the man who 
had tried to take his life. 

“You shot me for some reason, you Thing of the night; 
now here is some more just like it!” 

He wrote for long hours. He avoided mention of the 
tragedy to himself, other than to use it evasively in ex- 
plaining why any town, it mattered not what town, made 
the grave mistake of not electing proper men for different 
offices. To bunch together the best and worst element, 
the business men ; also those men of little or no business 
instinct in the community, mentally unprepared for im- 
portant offices, to say nothing of worth while men, suf- 
ficiently capable but too busy for the additional burden, 
he discussed at length. This, he told them, was their 
stumbling block. He paid tribute to the gentlemen at 


48 


COMING EVENTS 


the helm, deploring their unenviable position since no 
helpful assistance was possible without a rigid campaign 
to that effect. The school-board and the common council 
were the same class of officers. Their business was 
bunched. 

But he came back swift and sure at the officers who 
appropriated funds for sitting in holy conclave at the 
saloon, charging one dollar each for nothing but their 
honored presence! He felt the shot of a .32 calibre less 
than some town officers who came under the lash of that 
one strong editorial. He meant it to drive home. As 
a public assembly of offiters should stand for the acid 
test of manly force, he showed the readers wherein there 
was little or no force at all. He did not hesitate to dwell 
on the main idea that it was the inequality of principles 
that brought about the condition. 

His very soul might shuffle in iron handcuffs, and any 
man might turn turnkey on him or assassinate him ; for 
he possessed no occult power to draw opinions from the 
minds of men, though he felt that every town, city or 
village is in need of power where business is to be sus- 
tained for any length of time, to promote sturdy growth. 

That, alone was his object. He hid it no longer. He 
faced his battle alone, lost many advertisers, found new 
friends, lost a cause at times while gaining a serviceable 
point in the attempt. With standards of natural equity 
and public advantage, his paper grew in interest, as 
naturally it would. The world loves curiosity. Coleen 
presented it with the impact of an iron fist, and thus 
became the Caesar of his own weekly newspaper. 

It is strange; but not many of us care to have our 
solemn friends warn us. At best, most of us are children 
who want to touch the fire — just once, if never again. It 
is so in public affairs as it is in private matters. Coleen 
had placed himself where he could touch the fire or with- 


COMING EVENTS 


49 


draw. He was venturesome. Those who knew him best 
admired him for his imagination. No one could read 
his articles or listen to his public addresses, and feel 
that it was a waste of time. 

Peace slipped quietly into the place of receding chaos; 
but a new newspaper was started and Coleen was the 
least interested person in Garthage. He knew the policy 
of the paper, just which men were Instrumental in bring- 
ing the new editor to Garthage. He met the editor, shook 
his hand in jolly good fellowship, invited him to visit 
the office, really flourishing his own trumpet the while. 

But, if he felt no disturbance, at least he was anxious 
to see the first sheet. How they would lambast Coleen! 
He could even see the big black heading. He was ready 
for the attack. The paper would be out Wednesday after- 
noon. But it did not arrive on schedule time. The new 
editor was drunk! Thursday he was slightly sober, met 
Coleen and told him he had just dined on a fish, bones 
and all, and drank some beer. Coleen laughed at the 
sally. Friday the advertisers were furious — no paper. 
Saturday found the editor decidedly under the influence 
of Garthage’s well known Polish drink — polinky. 

Sunday afternoon the papers were issued. Coleen 
grabbed his copy, went to his room, closed the door, 
thought better and opened it again. 

There was not a word concerning Coleen. It was 
devoid of everything pertaining to the man or the prin- 
ciple he backed up. Taken as a local newspaper, it 
wasn’t half bad. But it was a sickening sheet for the 
advertisers, the backers. 

The fearless Coleen laughed heartily. He even wrote 
this head under his obituary notices. 

“DIED A-BORNIN’— THE ENTERPRISE, 
AGE— ONE WEEK.” 


50 


COMING EVENTS 


And much of his boyish fervor came back. Victory 
was his to toss high and catch. He used his polished 
criticism liberally, paying tribute to no person but the 
young lady who assisted on the new paper. And she 
wondered whether it was an eulogy to her solitude or a 
real sentiment of pity, possibly both. 

That week the second paper in Garthage died, died 
just as Coleen had predicted; and even his advertisers 
had to laugh, and laugh they did, finally returning to 
Coleen’s office with their advertisements, or as some of 
them expressed it, “Over at the market of scandal.” 

Then Coleen came into his own, alone, carrying his 
own banner. He did not make a big noise. He could 
turn any point with a single look and that laugh. It 
was his w r eapon at times. He used it like an eloquent 
Presbyterian should. He had never hoped to dream on 
as angels dream; but to fight as only a man can and will. 
He fought! 


CHAPTER VII 

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

O NE Saturday afternoon during the early harvest sea- 
son, Holmes was ready for a jaunt across country in 
his machine and invited Coleen to go along. At that time 
automobiles were luxuries for the rich and a ride was 
a treat. Coleen, of course, accepted. Holmes had been 
the one man, tried and true, through many of the editor’s 
dark days. There is usually one man of this type in 
every community. 

Before them stretched the great and beautiful Ohio 
valley, with many hillocks, small mountains and warm, 
wide fields of golden harvest, some noisy with the machin- 
ery at work, separating gold from dross. The country 
was beautiful. Noble purple and white asters graced the 
hillsides; life-everlasting bowed its heavy white heads as 
if the sturdy little bushes were old men and women, 
walking solemnly to church; fronds of ferns hung damp 
and glistening from wet rocks, while graceful yellow 
plumes hid many a barren spot where goldenrod loves 
to flourish. 

Why is it that men care so little for the beautiful 
country and its great possibilities that they crowd like 
frightened sheep to the city, blindly following a leader? 
Here were many of earth’s richest gifts; but it really 
appeared that the very ones who know best what the soil 
contained were not the old farmers of bygone days; but 
foreigners who grew food stuff from the roadside to the 
front door. 

Not rural sights alone, but rural sounds exhilarate the 
spirit and restore the tone to languid nature. There is 


52 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 


virtue in country houses, in gardens, in fields, streams 
and groves, in rustic recreation and plain manner, that 
neither cities nor universities enjoy. 

If you figure that country life is healthy to the body, 
it can be no less so to the mind. When you can find 
time to tear yourself away from the responsibility of 
business in the midst of the rush and hurry of city life, 
go to the country and make a fresh beginning. 

It was exactly what Coleen was doing. The scene 
brought him back to a picture hidden in memory’s store, 
with thousands of flowers, murmuring brooks, the image 
of his young mother, that patient womanly mother, 
ready with her touch of love that healed every pain he 
ever suffered. Allcarefree happiness then; now the 
reverse. Coleen was again in love with life. 

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Holmes asked, stopping the 
machine, “the fellow that owns any of this has all he 
needs.” 

“I own a piece of it back there,” Coleen explained. 

“You own it? Where did — well, I musn’t get per- 
sonal. I didn’t know, you see.” 

Coleen laughed. 

“You see,” he explained, “it was a tract of land left 
by my grandparents to my mother. I never paid any 
attention to it, only to pay the taxes. I came down 
here over a year ago, saw the place, so settled here for 
a purpose.” 

“And I’ll bet I know the purpose if I know where your 
land lies.” 

“Well, it’s known as ‘Dilly’s Peninsula,’ if you know 
where that is, and it extends back to the Perrin Run 
mines. I also have about twelve acres of mighty good 
timber there, too.” 

“I’ve missed my guess ; I thought perhaps your ground 
was on this side — plenty of gas and oil over there; but 


SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 53 


no good oil pockets on this side,” pointing to the left, 
“still, that land is rich and good and should be profit- 
able if properly farmed. But, really every farmer 
over in that section is land poor. Know that? I’ll bet 
you never saw a finer lay of land anyplace you have 
gone, than you can see right up here.” 

He started the machine which went spinning easily 
up the great Laurel Hill. At the top the machine was 
stopped and Holmes indicated field upon field of golden 
grain, dense woods, magnificent pastureland, with many 
herds of fine cows grazing throughout the meadowland. 

“That’s all Neugart’s,” he explained. “That is really 
the only farmer right here who is not land poor, because 
he is just a little like the foreigners, is making every 
inch of it pay. You rant and rave about your mail- 
order traffic, you should hear Neugart talk it by the 
mile. What was that you said? Why does he 
live in that old house? What old house? My good 
fellow, that isn’t Neugart’s home. That is where he 
began housekeeping when he was married. His wife 
died in that house and he has never removed one article 
from it. About ten years ago he built over on the other 
road. You can’t see the house from here; but it is 
almost palatial. I’ll take you over that road some day. 
Why he is the wealthiest man in this section of the 
country, lives like a prince over there. Why you met 
his daughter, I think, over at the picnic. I know you 
did; for I introduced you.” 

Coleen took a deep breath. He seemed strangely un- 
talkative just then. He turned, looking back of him, 
down the steep hill they had just climbed. 

“Ohio is all right” he said, then his eyes followed a 
flight of reed birds soaring high above him, all moving 
in a cloud to a leafy woods beyond. 

He wrote this editorial the following Monday morning: 


54 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

“Small cities and villages are important in our com- 
mercial system. Each has a definite service to perform 
in its own sphere, a service that is so well defined and 
universally understood, that it seems a waste of time 
and words to go into details concerning it. But for the 
purpose of this writing, it is necessary to briefly analyze 
the functions that have been and should be performed by 
these centers of trade. 

“In the first place the trading towns are the distribut- 
ing agencies of the producers. The farmers living in 
the territory surrounding them produce certain crude 
foodstuffs and raw materials needed by the manufac- 
turers that must be exchanged for other articles of com- 
merce the farmers themselves consume — manufactured 
foods, clothing, building materials, implements, furniture, 
etc. The manufacturers living in cities and villages take 
the grain, wool, cotton, flax, cattle, sheep, hogs, in fact 
all produce of the farm and transform most of them into 
finished commercial products. 

“Practically all the food of the nations comes from the 
farmer and much of it from plantations, and it must 
pass through the local trading centers on its way to the 
final market. All the articles of commerce consumed 
on the farm and by the operatives employed in the 
factories of the smaller towns and cities must also pass 
through them on their way to their ultimate consumer. 

“So long as competition shall obtain in the commercial 
world these agencies of distribution will be necessary. 
When competition shall go by the board and be replaced 
by monopolies, public or private, the smaller merchants 
and the trading centers they live in will be dispensed 
with. 

“So critical has become the situation in some of the 
larger cities that strenuous steps are being taken to 
induce members of the submerged classes to quit their 


SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 55 

urban misery and go back to the soil, to the green fields 
and running brooks, to the independence of farm life. 

“Accompanying this over-development of the metropol- 
ises of the country, there has begun a corresponding deca- 
dence of many of the smaller cities and villages. They 
are losing their trade to the larger centers of commerce. 
Garthage is among the great number of growing towns so 
afflicted. What is, in reality a city already, can easily 
be backed down and out, right now, unless we have dif- 
ferent rules and regulations and a better understanding 
of our true business situation, as is now attacked by 
Business’ worst foe — the mail-order houses. 

“Manufacturing towns have felt the effect of the big 
commercial drag less severely than those engaged in 
purely commercial lines, but they have been affected 
nevertheless. 

“The evil of catalogs and mail-order trading has grown 
enormously during the last decade. It has developed 
to a point where these gigantic corporations are now 
erecting and maintaining warehouses at central points 
several hundred miles from which shipments to the sur- 
rounding territory may be made. 

“If our merchants and consumers, to say nothing right 
now of the farmers, each so deeply involved, do not get 
together to do something to stem the tide, it will be a 
question of few years only when the small trading 
centers, like our own will be wiped out. Competition 
will be merely a subject of historical interest, and mo- 
nopoly will rule and ruin the land. 

“In some states where farming communities abound, 
the farmers conceived the idea of joining together for 
the purpose of cooperative buying of all kinds of farm 
implements and utensils. They went into the proposi- 
tion in a big way to “cut out” the local dealer and his 
profits. This effort proved quite effective during the 


56 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

season when their demands were large and they could 
get everything in car-load lots. 

It developed however, that failure was bound to re- 
sult from the continuation of this method. 

When their “season” was over, and they needed sup- 
plies only in small quantities it happened that their local 
dealers had discontinued the lines for which they had no 
more use when they were not buying from them and the 
farmers were left high and dry. In most cases the 
farmers “swallowed” their pride and asked for favors 
with the assurance that their patronage would be forth- 
coming in the future, and acknowledging their mistakes. 

This is, of course as bad as cutting out the local 
dealer in favor of the mail-order house. In every such 
case the individual himself suffers sooner or later, be- 
cause selfishness begets its own reward. 

“Each local community (Garthage for example), should 
be PROGRESSIVE. It should perform its functions as 
a marketing and a trading center, leaving no opening for 
an outsider to divert capital and business from the 
natural local channels of trade. There should be no 
such thing as catalogs and mail-order trading. 

“Last week I took a business trip over this section of 
the country. It was meant as a pleasure trip; but I 
believe in making business and pleasure the same thing 
when it is of vital importance. Then I met — 

“Some consumers who trade in Chicago, New York, 
Baltimore, all patrons of the big mail-order houses. 

“And I met some beautiful maidens arrayed in all of 
Solomon’s glory, thinking they were fashion plates. 
Garments I saw of poor material, many of them made in 
prisons, or in tenement houses, where sad-faced women 
have consumption, or some disease that is often highly 
infectious. 

“In yonder field was a man with part of a thrashing 


SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 57 

machine, the other part — Heaven knows where — maybe 
on the road, probably never sent. 

“I saw them, the men and the women, particularly the 
women, who peruse a catalog by lamplight and dream of 
inexpensive beauties. How deluded they are. 

“Arid then I thought of the money wasted, hundreds, 
thousands and — yes millions of dollars, taken from just 
such rural scenes, and I know that not a cent of it comes 
back! 

“Well I know that no mail-order house will give the 
consumer credit, not for a box of matches; even checks 
sent in payment of goods, must first be certified before 
goods are shipped; not one will help him send a daughter 
to school or help pay a mortgage on the home; never 
was catalog house known to help our school, church, or 
assist in anything whatsoever for the betterment of 
even one location. When a town loses its business grasp, 
every piece of property depreciates. It can’t hustle and 
grow with a burden of unfair competition bowing it to 
the earth. And when people of Garthage scoffed at the 
idea I presented, that a great amount of money went out 
of here to mail-order houses, I almost imagined I had 
gone to the extreme in making a guess* at the amount 
really expended; but I went out to prove the assertion, 
and it was many times worse than I ever imagined! 

“That is why I urge this splendid, growing town to 
bestir itself for municipal interest. A promising future 
is possible; but not so unless there is that movement 
which means a struggle. Officers must be men who want 
to live here, who have big interests here and are interested 
in the growth of the industries as much as the population. 
Civic pride must follow on swift feet, a work which will 
need the co-operation of our women; and there must be 
rigid and systematic school discipline, for we have for- 
eigners here, many of them, who can be made fine and 


58 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

worthy citizens when once they adopt our customs as 
they do our country, each ready to be all American in 
manner, speech and dress. An ignorant tongue is not 
necessarily in an ignorant head, for who among us would 
do better with the same poverty of expression? 

“It is an old, and a universal saying that the prosperity 
of the country — all the country — depends upon the quan- 
tity of produce raised on the farms. No other industry 
so seriously affects the business of the country as a crop 
failure. If the crops are generally good throughout the 
country, business feels its effect in every department of 
its industry. But should the crops fail in certain lo- 
calities, both the farmer and the merchant feel the ill 
effects. The farmer because he cannot meet his ob- 
ligations to the merchant; and the merchant because he 
will be obliged to carry the farmer until the farm yields 
a paying crop. As their interests are mutual, their 
business should be in harmony. The merchant always 
buys his produce from the farmer, and never for one 
moment thinks of sending out of town for his hay, grain 
or other rural produce necessities. But for some reason 
we have farmers right around us who do not follow the 
practice of reciprocity; but on the other hand, buy a great 
amount of household necessities in the large cities. This 
is an injustice, not only to the merchant but the farmer 
himself, as it reduces property values of the local town, 
and, in a very short time, will affect the farm values. 
It has ever been conceded that thriving farms are in the 
vicinity of prosperous towns or cities.” 

The editor had more and better ideas to present, more 
than space permitted. Having agitated the question, he 
was not at all surprised that several of their thinking 
citizens imbibed much of what had appeared in the 
paper, and set about to have a public meeting. But, 
strange to say, while they agitated it, brought speakers to 


SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 59 

Garthage and even blazoned their advertisements to the 
entire country about, they did not include Coleen in a 
single performance of their duties. 

It has been this way for all time, I suppose. The 
father of a thought does not have the opportunity to 
nurse his own children, or his children’s children. In a 
sense it hurt Coleen to the quick. True, he had caused 
the town to investigate the impure water supply; but a 
member of the council strutted pompously about, pro- 
claiming what he had done for sanitation; there had 
been a cleaning up day in Garthage and Coleen was 
perfectly content to give the different churches the credit, 
having gone to the ministers of each to have them agitate 
the movement. Where unsightly rubbish heaps were 
piled, the earth was clean, if not verdant; but grass 
would grow another year, and window boxes would 
flourish. The barren school yard would be made more 
attractive, all ugly signs and unnecessary advertising on 
fences, houses and outbuildings were fast disappearing; 
still — Coleen was the agitator, but somehow or other, 
someone else took the credit. 

Not once had he really resented it; but when they agi- 
tated the public meeting, he wrote the following short 
squib: 

“And now the dream has come true — a real agitation 
of spirited brotherhood for our mutual benefit. And who 
brought the fact home and nailed it in sight? Perhaps 
it was the same fellow who said he wrote Snowbound , and 
didn’t; or it was the author of 'Curfew shall not ring 
tonight,’ or else it isn’t; but what difference does it make 
who made us sit up and' think, so long as we really see? 
Let us then bow to Old Man Garthage, the highest 
exponent of our town, only a spirit, for his appearance in 
our midst.” 

When he read it, he said to himself: “Now that was a 


60 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

fool thing to write. I acted as if there had been a taffy 
pulling and little Johnnie had not been invited.” 

But he went to the meeting, right up to one of 
the front seats. He listened, glad of the fresh ideas 
that came from lips eloquent with the warnings to all 
towns. He learned more and more and more of the 
very thing he had studied for years, and the astonishing 
facts fairly floored him. 

Garthage was in danger ! She was headed right for it. 
It was no idle dream, no bit of foolishness that these 
men were expounding to the throng of men, women and 
children. They knew the danger ahead. Farmers listened 
attentively, some scarcely moving, so wrapped up were 
they in what the speakers were saying. Cheer after cheer 
reverberated throughout the great hall. Men clapped 
their hands, women waved handkerchiefs, while the 
usual cat yodels responded from between boyish fingers; 
for where is the boy who won’t shriek, if for no other 
purpose than that of making a noise? Above all floated 
the music of the Italian orchestra as a befitting part of 
their expressed sentiment. 

A lull followed and to the utter astonishment of Coleen, 
the chairman of the meeting announced that Miss 
Natalie Neugart would sing “The Little Old Home 
Town.” 

Coleen had not thought of the girl. He looked in 
the direction of a slight commotion where people were 
making room for her to pass down the aisle. As she 
rose, a young man stepped forward, put a chair aside 
and smiled at her. She handed him several articles she 
had been carrying. 

John Coleen looked at the man, a stranger, someone 
so different from the men of Garthage, the; city bred 
fellow with the unmistakable stamp of high culture and 
that ease of the world that comes with certain indepen- 


SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 61 

dence, the surety of anything, frequently backed by 
money to make it more assertive. 

Coleen felt the hot blood spread over his whole body. 
Unquestionably the man was her escort, and a thousand 
furies, hurts that scar the very soul, touched the heart 
of the lonely editor. 

He did not look at her. He could not! He felt him- 
self slipping back, back into some fathomless depths. 
Then again he felt the touch of her lips as he had kissed 
her. To save his very soul he could not believe a kiss 
like his was wrong or unholy. He knew it was; but he 
could not tell just why, and he did not care to know. 

The soft Italian music was well suited to the simple 
verses. She took herself seriously as any person could 
tell by the wealth of seriousness in the tender melody. 
It was the same voice that wooed a certain man in the 
woods ; and it was the same voice now singing, close 
beside the bier of a dying love. But would it die? If 
only it could! 

“Someone always loves you in the little old home town, 
Someone always hopes that you’ll make good — 

There’s always someone living in the little old home 
town, 

Who’d be glad to help you if they could. 

Someone always cares for you in the little old home 
town, 

There’s someone there that thinks you’ll make a name — 
Someone always misses you in the little old home town, 
If you are a failure, why, they love you just the same. 
There’s someone always dear to you in the little old 
home town, 

A sweetheart or a sister fond and true — 

A father, mother, brother, friend, in the little old home 
town — 

Somebody in that little town that really cares for you!” 


62 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH NATURE 

Coleen had heard the song before; though never as 
he heard it then. He looked up at her as she turned 
slightly to give him a fleeting glance. Then it was 
he knew that song was just for himself. Swifter than 
all mechanical messages was the call of love that held 
her just out of reach of arms that ached to hold her. 
Madly in love, more than jealous, heartsick and dis- 
gusted, he returned to his room at the hotel. On the 
dresser was a telegram. He tore open the envelope 
and read. 

“Our little darling died tonight. Come home. Julia.” 

He read it once, twice, a half dozen times. He forgot 
the melody singing in his heart “Somebody cares for 
you,” for he thought only of his stricken wife, the 
sorrowing mother of his dear, dear little boy. Oh, God, 
what a way to live! With trembling lips and shaking 
hands, he mechanically selected a few clothes, threw 
them into his bag and left the hotel. 


CHAPTER VIII 

NEW BEGINNINGS. 

T HOSE of us whose principles are right may suffer re- 
verses, even losses, will certainly make enemies, but 
in the long run will achieve decisive victory and, pos- 
sibly, lasting good. 

Coleen had returned to Garthage. The memory of 
that trip to the home of his wife was like a dream. 
What he had imagined was not fulfilled. There was 
something over everything like a perfect maze. True, 
the child was dead. Sorrowful memories would never 
be forgotten, though time alone would help to relieve 
the pang. Coleen felt the veneered politeness of his 
wife’s relatives. Sorrow brings us strangely together 
for the time being. But the mother of the boy was 
the real sufferer. No words consoled her for the 
great loss. She was not alone with her husband who 
found himself in a false position, go where he would. 
The morning of his return home they dined alone. She 
did not eat, did not even pretend to. She sat across 
the table from him, her delicate chin resting in the 
palm of her left hand. Her elbow rested on the pad- 
ded table, and her lovely face was torture-marked with 
the ravages of tears and lack of sleep. 

What she wanted, he did not know. He did not 
ask her. He felt very sorry for her, but not the sorrow 
that love lends. He felt sorrier for himself, for she had 
robbed him of the boy’s presence in a home he wanted 
to provide. Always had Julia been selfish. She was 
selfish with the dead. He could say nothing now and 
he meant to say nothing; but the silence was embarrass- 
ing. 


64 NEW BEGINNINGS 

“John,” looking him right in the eyes, “what are 
we to do?” 

“I don’t understand you, Julia. Do about what?” 

“I’m so terribly — alone. Do you yyant me now? 
I should have gone to you, John, but, well — I did 
not. I wanted to. You know I did. I want to go now. 
I just can’t stay here now.” 

He looked over at her, the girl-wife pleading for 
her place in the world with him. To be tender was 
to be untrue. He had never been false to her in 
any respect. His word was his pledge to God; but 
to tell her he would take her with him, that he 
still wanted her, he could not and would not say it. 

“Do you want me?” she asked. 

He shook his head slowly. “Not now, Julia. You 
simply killed every particle of love I ever had for 
you. I’ll take the best possible care of you, send 
you money, clothes, get you anything within my 
means; but I’m honest, I do not want you with me.” 

“Is it some other woman? Are you — are you — 
John, do you mean to tell me you love some other 
woman?” 

“I did not mean to tell you, Julia. Now that you 
have said it, I may just as well admit it — it is an- 
other woman.” 

Coleen had once seen a she bear in an iron cage, 
furtively nosing the bars, showing its teeth, working 
every strong muscle of its tortured body to get to a 
man who played with her cub outside the cage. Hell 
had no fury equal to the mother who felt the misery 
of iron bars against her angry attack. 

He thought of that bear as he looked at the dainty, 
beautiful, silent girl opposite him, the love between 
them, with no hope of saving it. Spare her he could 
not, for she had left no opportunity for it. He had 


NEW BEGINNINGS 65 

played fair with her all the years and the hurtful 
truth came not to hurt or wound, but as the honest 
feeling he had for her. 

She quickly left the room. 

On his way home he thought of the additional grief 
he had caused her at a time when she wanted love 
and sympathy. It was not resentment; but the same 
feeling came to him that he, too, had known times 
when her love and encouragement were all he needed, 
and she had held silently aloof at the time when he 
needed her most. Yes, sorry he was; but he would 
do the same thing again. He knew it was against 
every law divine. The church alone would urge 
him to keep to the holy ties; honest manhood urged it; 
everything directed him to take her and make the best 
of it; but Love that filled his heart for another woman, 
a heart that knew all the pangs of loneliness and defeat, 
was his victor. That Julia was the mother of his 
son was a solemn thing. He knew she was a kind and 
gentle mother. But he wondered just why he had 
ever loved her. Try as he would, he could not replace 
her in his heart, so he did not even try. 

Several weeks later he spent an evening talking with 
Father Jarenski. To the noble old man he told all. 
He was one person he could trust. He had been a 
kind and silent listener, then he lifted his grand old 
head, smiled gently and even laid his withered hand 
upon the right hand of the editor. 

“My son, earthly love puts divinity to rout. Every- 
thing in this world is a cheap signboard, remember 
that. All the consuming flames of religion won’t help 
a man in trouble if he hasn’t the moral sentiment 
that goes with religious intent. Men like you lose 
themselves in the big crowd. They pursue and often 
capture; but I have yet to know the man, any man, 


66 


NEW BEGINNINGS 


who violated the laws of heaven who can truthfully 
say he is happy. We gain our contentment by being 
as good and true as divine love will make us. Men 
resist temptations at one time of the day only to 
adopt them at another time. Life is just one big 
temptation. If you have failed your God, don’t be 
surprised that your young and beautiful wife has failed 
you. I honestly think you are at fault, that this new 
love is only an impulse. I’d never put aside the woman 
who gave birth to my son. There is no end to illusions. 
I never knew any man who violated his sacred duty 
who came out a better man for his effort. If it is 
artificial happiness you seek, you will forsake one to 
gain the other; but somehow or other, Mr. Coleen, 
you look like a man!” 

When Coleen listened to the aged priest, he felt 
there was something finer in his friend, than anything 
which he said. Men exert on each other a sort of 
occult power. It was true with these two men (for 
Coleen enjoyed the fruition of the priest’s ripe years). 
He admired his fine thoughts and gentle sentiments. 
The priest frequently sought the society of Coleen, 
often to imbibe some of the younger man’s energy 
and ambition which are so helpful to the aged. There 
was sure to be a hearty laugh, for Coleen was de- 
cidedly humorous at times, and to the priest it meant 
a clash of wit, often so original that both men added 
rich stores to the humorous nature each possessed. 
Strange to say they never discussed religion, at least 
in its broadest sense; though often they spoke of natural 
forces, natural power, laws, and inexhaustible subjects 
tending for moral uplift. 

One afternoon the priest was calmer than usual. 
He came into the office, sat down and in a strange 
mood said, “if a man’s friend had displeased him, not 


NEW BEGINNINGS 


67 


to get angry with the friend, but sit down and consider 
it, then he would not rise with a burden, but a bles- 
sing.” 

“Then I’d give him a punch!” This from Charlie 
Holmes who was reading a proof sheet of his own ad- 
vertisement. 

“Then, possibly, you are the one who shot Mr. 
Coleen?” The twinkle in the old man’s eyes was fun 
provoking. 

“No, the other fellow beat me down here. I’ll get 
him next time. Don’t you think the air in here is much 
purer since he got this week’s editorials out in the 
open?” 

“He told you nothing but the truth, though I be- 
lieve you have been one of his steadfast friends. Men 
should be intelligent and earnest. If not they have 
no controlling future interest before them. For my part 
it seems most remarkable what editors must write, 
every day and every day. I no more wonder why 
they occasionally slip a cog. I think Mr. Coleen wishes 
to write. Work is a rich estate; but we get tired and in- 
different. It is difficult to double our power when 
everything goes wrong.” 

The priest remained a few minutes after the de- 
parture of Mr. Holmes. 

“Have you ever learned who shot you that night?” 
he asked. 

“No,” said Coleen, surprised at the question. “Why?” 

“Well, I know for a certainty that the search has 
gone on, but so far as I know the man has not been 
discovered. There has remained in my mind a dis- 
quietude, a vague fear, a feeling of terror, springing 
from our impossibility to discover him. If he is here 
in Garthage, he may make a second attack.” 

The priest had voiced a dormant feeling in Coleen, 


68 


NEW BEGINNINGS 


without creating fresh alarm. There really was no 
cause for the first attack, why a second? 

He turned to his desk, opened some mail and was 
busy reading it when the door opened softly and within 
its coarse rough wooden frame stood the very soul of 
Love — Natalie! An unfinished letter to his wife was 
in the typewriter! 

“Was it wrong?” she asked, coming to him swiftly. 
“I had to come. I’m going away. I’m going back to 
school. I — I just wanted to say good bye, then go.” 

Like a little child who had wandered into a strange 
place and was lost, Coleen took her hand, led her 
back to the door; but turned, stood against the door 
as if to protect her from some outside foe, then spoke: 

“You are not wrong, Natalie. It is I who have been 
the one who did the greatest wrong. I am very, very 
sorry. I am truly glad you are going to New York. 
You will meet many fine, good friends there. I don’t 
know why it is that a man of my age should be so 
foolish about you; but, child, I won’t wrong the heart 
of a little girl like you so, — ” 

“You said you loved me.” The voice was pleading. 

“And I do love you. But, Natalie, you have everything 
in the world to make you happy, a beautiful home, friends, 
money, everything that promises pleasure to a girl in 
your position. Love is all I crave right now. You 
women are not brought up with the idea of fighting, 
of striving, or suffering. I have had a hard year of it. 
I told you I am married. I lost my little boy since I 
last talked with you. You don’t want me to promise 
love which I can’t possibly give, at least not now. I 
was writing to my wife as you came in. I want her 
to come back to me.” 

“You love her?” Natalie asked in a whisper. 

“God, no! I love you. But she is mine for time 


NEW BEGINNINGS 


69 


and eternity. She needs me and I — it is all I can do. 
I am a man who has spent his happiest hours in 
dreaming. I wouldn’t give back that short time I spent 
with you for an everlasting eternity in any kingdom; 
but that’s no way to talk to you.” 

Outside they heard the monotonous grinding of 
car wheels, the rattle and bang of coal cars at the tipple. 
The day was gray and the world so unlovely. Coleen 
looked from the window on the opposite side of the 
room. He saw a bright pink house that jarred furiously 
against his ragged nerves. A dirty hillside formed 
the background. He hated everything. 

How lamely, he had stated facts to the girl. He knew 
he had made the very same blunder while talking with 
his wife. What he wanted to say he could not say; 
what he did say was not what he really meant. The 
quietness of the girl, standing with downcast eyes, 
tortured him unmercifully. 

His eyes wandered from the narrow brim of the 
dainty hat which crowned her head, down to the sweet 
face beneath it. He reached out both hands and 
placed them on her shoulders. Forgetful of what he 
had just said, his arms slipped down over her slender 
yielding form, and the arms clasped her fiercely to him. 

He reached back of him, turned the key in the lock, 
then placed the key in his pocket. Instantly he with- 
drew the key, unlocked the door and opened it wide. 

H,e heard the soft patter of her little feet on the 
wooden stairs, growing fainter and fainter. He might 
see her if he went to the window. Instead, he returned 
to his desk, and with blurred vision looked down at the 
unfinished letter. He picked it up, tore it into shreds. 
He threw off his coat, glanced over some mail on his 
desk, with a prayer in his heart that he might some 
day look like a man and be a man! 


70 


NEW BEGINNINGS 


He glanced at a manuscript, then an amused smile 
flitted over his face. The manuscript was written by 
no other than Natalie’s father! 

That week David Neugart read the following, the 
brief squibs he had written one evening while Natalie 
played and sang for him. Like the average person 
who sees his own sentiments in print, he read them 
cheerfully. 

“The retail catalog houses do not buy the farmer’s 
produce. 

“They do not buy the farmer’s stock and hogs. 

“They do not help to educate the farmer’s children. 

“They do not pay any taxes in your community. 

“They do not help support your schools, churches and 
charitable institutions. 

“They do not encourage the farmer’s boys, or young 
men in small cities to engage in business. 

“They do not help to build your roads or care for your 
streets. 

“They do not sell you as good a grade of goods as 
you can buy in your own home town. 

“They do not show you goods before you pay for them. 

“They do not deliver promptly the goods you buy 
from them. 

“They do not advocate the building up of country 
towns. 

“They do not oppose the centralization of business in 
the large cities. 

“They do not, in return for the farmer consumer’s 
trade, who buy their clothing, household goods, farm 
implements, etc., from them, buy the farmer’s butter, 
eggs, cheese, grain or wood. 

“They do not buy your grain, butter, cheese and stock 
from pictures and pay in advance the same as you do. 


NEW BEGINNINGS 71 

“They do not buy anything from the farmer or con- 
sumer from a picture. 

“They do not spend one dollar with the farmer or con- 
sumer. 

“They never spend one dollar with your local mer- 
chants. 

“They do not furnish employment to a single resident 
of your community. 

“They do not extend to you credit, the same as does 
the local merchant, when you are hard up. 

“They do not sympathize with you when you have 
sickness in your family. 

“They do not sympathize with you when your wife or 
children are taken from you. 

“They do not care for anything or anybody, except 
for your money. 

“They do not care for anything or anybody, except 
for themselves. 

“They do not want to see your local merchant prosper 
in business. 

“Do you ever see one dollar of their money? 

“THEN WHAT IN CREATION DO WE WANT 
THEM FOR?” 


CHAPTER IX 

EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 
OLEEN had believed in all he said and predicted. 



w If other men had found time to evolve a plan, a 
plan to bring the greatest necessity to a country, why not 
continue with his own. Each man has his chance. In 
the line of work he pursued, some men found objections. 
There was small chance for public demonstration other 
than mere words, his own words, and such comments as 
he found valuable for use. We always have the skeptical 
with us. Men seldom believe without seeing and the 
spirit of “It can’t be done,” held to many. 

Coleen worked hard that winter to present his plans 
and views. At the same time he was in conference 
with several men who paid frequent business trips to 
Garthage. It was known that these men were usually 
with David Neugart, Charles Holmes and John Coleen. 
What their business was no person in Garthage knew. 
Several times a week Holmes and Coleen had gone to 
the Neugart home. True, Natalie was not there. When 
their business visitors called, they frequently were en- 
tertained at the Neugart home. Something was in the 
wind, though no person guessed just what it was. But it 
was evidently something important, for two of the men 
were financiers. Neugart was rich in land and money; 
Holmes had different places of business up and down the 
whole of the Ohio valley and manufacturing interests 
in Chicago. Garthage happened to be the home of his 
boyhood, also the home of his wife, each a country 
home which was swallowed up in the growth of Garthage 
to become town homes. It was unnecessary to make the 


EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 73 

big plunge. He had fallen in with Coleen’s idea at the 
start: To make a town to withstand the world, to live 
within its border and to be self sufficient, all powerful, 
a place worth while, not to desert, but to have and to 
hold. Ugly as was Garthage, it presented one of the 
handsomest landscapes in the Ohio valley. Mining in- 
terests had marred its beauty; but mining interests 
can’t claim the earth, and it was unneccessary for a town 
to suffer as a result. While the mines were right in the 
very heart of Garthage, the chance for building the 
resident district to the north of Garthage, along a 
wonderful stretch of country, was indeed the finest in 
eastern Ohio. 

Coleen did not discover who was his assailant on 
that memorable night when he fell as a result of the shot 
fired at his back. Had it been a dirk in the back, he 
would have thought of the foreigners in Garthage who 
stab at the back, the Italians; but Italians seldom use 
firearms. Another thing that convinced him was the 
fact that the priest never discovered the would be mur- 
derer. True, he would not have divulged the confes- 
sion of his church members; but he was honest in 
saying that he knew nothing, could learn nothing, and 
was confident the man was not a foreigner. 

Coleen did not think so himself. Something pointed 
strongly to another clew. Who shot him, Coleen did not 
know. In fact he never would know; but it was evident 
from what followed that the plot was hatched in the 
saloon where he had gone on different nights with the 
men comprising the town’s schoolboard and council. 
Some man in that crowd hated him for his written at- 
tack concerning their unbusinesslike procedure. That 
hate had resulted in the shot fired, possibly not by the 
hands of the man who hated Coleen, “but money gets 
you anything.” His surprises came gradually; for in 


74 EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 

the first place the building in which he had his offices 
was sold and he had to move. He moved again from 
his humble rooms in the tailor’s establishment. As 
soon as settled and prepared to continue business, some- 
thing occurred to make him move. It wasn’t his adver- 
tisers, surely, who were responsible. But he kept on 
the go. 

At last he purchased a two room cottage. He fur- 
nished it and felt the reassurance that comes from having 
his own place of business. On the eleventh of January 
the building was burned to the ground. He collected 
his insurance, bought another cottage and began pub- 
lishing his paper with the same zeal. He followed up 
his calamities. He discovered the purchasers of the 
different pieces of property he had occupied. It wasn’t 
one man, it was several. Then, like an angry bull, 
he lowered his head, plunged ahead and meant to gore 
when the time came. 

Garthage was slowly rising from her filth, and seeming 
neglect. She began with greater zest the following 
spring. Women took ready hold and Garthage blos- 
somed forth in a most astonishing and gratifying manner. 

It was pleasing to Coleen to know that his friends, 
and he made many of them, were men and women worth 
while. They were among the intellectual persons of 
Garthage. He was welcome in homes of wealth and 
culture. He finally moved his office to a more protected 
place, rooms in the great railway building, and from 
that time on, he met with no disaster. 

Several times he thought of leaving. He hated a 
quitter. Then he knew just why he was in Garthage 
and it was worth waiting to get. Get it? He had no 
possible chance of loss. And when he did get it, he 
meant to make some people dance. He was powerless 


EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 75 


as it was; but the time was coming when opportunities 
would keep him remarkably busy! 

Women ! 

Well, what does any man know of women. How can 
any man hope to please thousands of them when the 
average man has a difficult time pleasing just one? 

But woman is a part of the great plan, even down to 
a man’s legal papers, provided she is his wife, and Coleen 
needed nothing so much as his wife’s name on several 
papers to complete his business plans. 

Coleen, with papers in 1 his pocket, his traveling bag 
near the door of his office, was meditating on this very 
point, while glancing idly over a railroad time-table. 

His meditations were cut short by the appearance of 
Charlie Holmes. Holmes looked down at the traveling 
bag, then at the faultlessly attired editor. 

“Onward Christian Soldier,” he sang. “Now where 
the diddo are you going? From the expression on your 
face, you’d make a fellow think you were going out 
to assassinate your dear old grandmother.” 

“I’m going to Pittsburg to see my wife. There, you 
have my explanation. I didn’t hear your car stop. 
How’d you get down here?” 

“Car? Oh, the devil on that car. I cranked it up 
this morning and the thing flew over in the woods. I 
don’t know whether it lit in a tree or in a frog pond, 
haven’t been over to see; but, say, I guess we can pull 
off that deal this week. If we don’t, some tragedy to 
your uncle Charlie. But — say, Coleen, I never knew 
you had a wife.” 

“As there are about ten million men who do not know 
it, I’m not a bit surprised that you did not know it. 
To tell you the truth, Holmes, I haven’t a wife. My 
honorable father-in-law has her. I just happen to be 
that old man’s paralytic stroke in this world. Yes, 


76 EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 

I have a wife, a sweet, beautiful girl. She couldn’t 
live in this place — I would not ask her to come here, 
you know. I’m going up to have her sign these papers. 
I may bring her back with me for a few weeks. I hope 
to.” 

As he mentioned her in the affectionate terms he 
had used all the time, there came again the craving for 
her, wanting her as the irresistible necessity in his life. 
Would she come? Yes, probably! 

Coleen frequently thought of another woman, a 
girlish creature singing her way into the hearts of men 
and women. Now she was nothing but a memory of 
tenderness, something of a prayer he had heard, or the 
soft reverberation of holy music. Not for world upon 
world or all the inducements that such worlds could 
offer, would he ever again tempt himself or the little 
girl into anything so base in God’s sight as that real 
but artificial love. Real in his heart; but made artifi- 
cial by the ties of wedlock. When he thought that he 
was going to see his wife, it worried him, pleased him, 
annoyed him, while driving into his brain the resolve to 
take her back into his life and be happy with her. 
Love remained in his heart for her. 

That man never lived who lost a certain tenderness 
he has enjoyed with a woman he has loved and who 
has been the mother of his child. Cold and indiffer- 
ence often fill their hearts, love and joy burn to white 
ashes; but always is there a little burning spark under 
the white ashes which, if revived, will burst into flame. 
We can hate those we love; but we can’t love those we 
hate first. 

Both men looked in the direction of the door, having 
heard some person ascending the steps. Outside the 
footsteps halted. Then Sonia stepped quietly into the 
office. 


EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 77 


Sonia’s homely face was tender in a pathetic way. 
Her wonderful eyes, tenderly deep and dark like some 
exotic flowers, would beautify the ugliest face. Timidly 
she glanced at the men, then gave a startled look at the 
walls, ceiling and floor of the room. She stepped quickly 
backward through the door, when Coleen called her. 

“What do you want, Sonia?” 

The gentleness of his voice reassured the shrinking 
nature. She came back into the office and walked up 
to his desk. 

“It is no need to ask you, for I never see so clean 
a off ess, Mr. Coleen. What I want was work — you know 
to clean, to scrub, to make the win’ows bright, you 
know. Oh, how beautiful you have it clean. I want 
money. I have a little babee, don’t you know. My 
man’s — he — he got killed. I must do everything, don’t 
you know. And now I got no money — oh, my poor 
little babee — Who cleans your offess?” 

“Mrs. Taylor has done the work for me, Sonia. No, 
I need no person. I’m sorry; but you know Mrs. Taylor 
is a widow too and she has five children. She does the 
work nicely. I should think you could get plenty of 
offices to clean. I don’t see many clean ones here. Have 
you tried?” 

“Yes.” she answered quietly; “some say ‘not today’ 
others, ‘get out, you damned hunky,’ and lots of men 
say — say — oh, I could not tell you what they say 
— those bad, bad men.” 

Her small dark hand reached for a tiny gold cross 
on a chain that swung over the maternal bosom of the 
“damned little hunky” whose faith in her Savior gave 
her the mother love strength to hunt work for herself 
to care for the fatherless babe. 

Coleen understood. Dear God, how well he did un- 
derstand, but the condition is the same over the whole 


78 EXPECTING THE CHANGE OF TIDE 


wide world. It occurred to him at the moment that The 
One who notes the sparrow’s fall, sometimes forgets 
the little women on His earth. 

Sonia had reached the door. Holmes followed her. 
“Sonia,” he said, “go clean my office. It is not very 
dirty; but you can clean it nicely, I know. Here is 
some money.” Without looking at what he handed her, 
he drew some money from his pocket and put it into 
her hand. “Only, you must not move the pianos, Sonia. 
When I want to exercise them, I put them out in 
pasture.” He laughed happily. “You’ll find dust 
cloths in a bag on the closet door. I’ll see you again.” 

Coleen had watched the performance, the spontan- 
eous outburst of human sympathy which gives every 
man renewed faith in mankind. After all God does 
look after the widows! It wasn’t necessary to take a 
gilt-edged Bible and trot off to some church to follow 
the right mandates and precepts which are expected of 
us. Coleen’s hand covered some money in his pocket. 
The time had come and gone to do the same thing. 
He had witnessed the Christlike act of a man paying 
honorable tribute to a dead man’s wife and child. 


CHAPTER X 

FOR HONOR’S SAKE 

W HEN Coleen saw his wife that evening at the hotel, 
where he had wired her to meet him, stating it was 
for business, he was mildly surprised that' she came at all. 
He really expected it would be necessary to call at her 
home, a place he did not care to visit. 

It was night and the softened blue light in the room 
made her extremely pale. She looked ill and seemed 
very glad to take the chair he placed for her. 

Her feeling of resentment occasioned on the day he 
had spoken so rudely to her, after the funeral of their 
child, was forgotten. What took its place she did not 
know. Whatever that death had meant to one had 
been the same to the other. There is a binding tie in 
death as there is in wedlock, something to be unbroken, 
unforgotten. 

Her dainty attire attracted him. Always had she 
pleased his eye, as beautiful women all play that im- 
portant part, whether they break the heart while pleas- 
ing the eye, does not seem to matter. At any rate, 
he thought only of her. 

He took the papers from his pocket, drew his chair 
beside hers, placed the papers in her lap. 

“Julia,” he whispered, “let business go just now. I 
would have come anyhow! I have wanted you, and 
I do know you want me.” . 

The papers slipped to the floor. 

There is a quietness more eloquent than words. Coleen 
wrote his ideas. He was silent most of the time, as 
are most deep thinkers. To him it was a relief that 


80 


FOR HONOR’S SAKE 

Julia understood the words he could not speak. He 
had not lived with her all the years they had been to- 
gether, for her to forget that one trait. 

“We have both suffered, John,” she said, running her 
hands through his hair, in the same old caress, with 
the tips of her fingers playing their light tatoo on both 
temples, that trick a woman has of caressing the man 
she loves, or playing with a child. “But, John, it was 
my fault, always my fault. I know it now. But I had 
to learn it, so — ” 

“No, Julia, it was my own fault. It was only your 
fault because you had not learned your duty to me. 
I used to tell you that we could get along better by 
ourselves, that I felt when I married you I had the 
perfect right to ask you to please me. I was wrong too; 
for you had not been raised that way. It was not 
taught you, so I got angry. I was in the wrong.” 

“I think we were both in the wrong, perhaps; but, 
John, the fault was mine.” She added this with a 
whimsical smile. “I had father and aunt Judie to back 
me in every foolish act. May be I had brains, I do not 
know; but I never used them. I don’t believe I ever 
thought what I was to you or what was my duty to you. 
You were not wealthy like father, and that did make a 
difference. When father supplied what you could not, 
I wondered why you did not and — ” 

“Say we don’t talk about it. We can make it up. 
I can make it up financially in a few years, perhaps. 
I really do not know. I came expressly to get you, if 
you will to go back with me; but I can’t promise you 
city life there, only I am in a fair position to get some 
money soon, very soon, after which the money will 
make money for us.” 

“What is it?” she asked. 

“It’s all a secret just now; but I know enough to real- 


FOR HONOR’S SAKE 


81 


ize the outcome. You see I have that farm down there 
that used to belong to my grandfather. You know I paid 
the taxes on it after mother owned it, then, of course, 
I got it at her death. I heard there was a tremendous 
oil boom down there and that is what took me there. 
I went down, but oil seems to follow a certain lay of 
the land. A creek joins the Ohio River near my place 
and, of course, it was my luck not to be on the right 
side of the creek, though only a nasty, dirty, copper- 
colored creek separates my land from one of the dandiest 
oil fields in Ohio. I have several hundred acres, and a 
small tract of good timber; but it did not promise very 
well until lately. I was over in West Virginia about 
six months ago at a hotel. It was there I met some men 
I know who are interested in steel and iron. They 
wanted a site along the Ohio River. I knew I had it, 
and what was more to my advantage and theirs too, 
is the fact that my land, while lying near the river, is 
above the flood line. That alone makes it valuable. To 
the right and left of me is some of the finest country 
you ever saw in all your life, a magnificent site for a 
thriving city, with plenty of territory for its growth. 
Garthage is right on one end of it, so you see the pos- 
sibility of making a city out of it. I couldn’t go ahead 
with my plans unless I could interest others to go in 
with me, so I told the men my plans and had them 
visit me. Are you interested?” He asked eagerly. 
“You don’t seem interested.” 

“Certainly. Certainly, John. What did they do?” 

“Well, before they came I saw a dandy good friend 
of mine there, a Mr. Holmes who owns some land not 
adjoining mine exactly, so he bought the connecting 
farm, only several acres; but enough to block us out, 
if the other fellows would not come in. Then we went 
to a rich farmer who lives about two miles away and 


82 


FOR HONOR’S SAKE 


whose land almost joined mine on the west side, and 
he bought the farms to my left, leaving the whole of that 
site to three of us. But I have the best lay of land for 
the mills; Holmes has a fine place for factories, adjoin- 
ing Garthage; while Mr. Neugart takes the prize for a 
residence district. 

“I have to sell to get the men to take the location, 
the others can lease; but I was not so fortunate as that. 
Still, I don’t have to sell all of the farm, and I have 
something up my sleeve for the rear of the place.” 

“Are you quite sure the men will take it?” Julia in- 
quired. “You know I know absolutely nothing concern- 
ing business. I simply can’t understand it.” 

“Not many women do. But this is as simple as can 
be. Take it? Of course they take it. I’ll want you 
to go with me tomorrow to sign these papers, then, 
Julia, we can begin to live, can’t we?” 

He threw his arms around her. Never had his lips 
been so thirsty for a kiss. He wanted her to kiss him. 
Instead she looked away from him. 

“And if I sign these papers, and you get a whole lot 
of money, why, why you can leave me and marry that 
woman you told me you loved? I guess I’ll not put my 
name on any paper, not yet, John.” 

“Oh, you will!” 

Coleen looked at his watch. 

“Julia, we are to dine now. We will have a little 
old love feast, won’t we? But don’t, don’t say ‘other 
woman ’ to me again as long as you live. I’m home, or 
here in Pittsburg, for honor’s sake. Sign or don’t sign; 
but just keep this in mind — I want you whether I com- 
plete my plans or not. I do want to complete them, 
of course; for once I get in power, I can pay off some 
old debts. I owe some. And they are not debts of 
money, but other kinds. I haven’t seen the other woman 


FOR HONOR’S SAKE 


83 


for the Lord knows how long. I’ve gone straight, you 
bet on that! There is the dearest old priest I ever met 
who comes to my office, and that old fellow has taught 
me how to put new strings on my old harp. Oh, you’ll 
like him. He is a man among men, old Father Jarenski, 
And you’ll like Holmes and his wife and kids. Julia, 
for the Lord’s sake look happy. I feel as if I had just 
been released from prison and my name had come back 
to me, after being numbered for years!” 

“Forgive me,” she said, nestling closer to him. “Oh, 
John, John, John, you’ve been away, not here; but I 
was just wishing our little boy had lived to be here. 
I— I—” 

He understood, but hastened to quiet her. He hated 
tears. 

“Julia, I have felt the same ever since I saw you,” 
he answered. “But, Dearie, if that little fellow knew 
how happy we were just now, I guess he would be very 
glad. Let’s think that. Now we are going to have 
dinner, you know, and you can order the things I like. 
Forgotten?” 

“No, I remember.” She picked up the papers. “Put 
them safely away, John. I’ll sign them tomorrow.” 

Prison bars are not the worst prisons in life. It is 
the soul of a man or a woman fettered with life’s trials 
and tribulations, this going through life with the heavy 
ball and chain weighing down every rising hope. To 
be free. To be free! 

The turnkey of Fate had ordered the release of just 
two such prisoners. 

At that moment a sweet and beautiful girl attired in 
an evening gown, sat at her window, looking out on 
the great metropolis. Despite her success, her friends, 
her acquaintances, she was lonely, and she wanted 
Coleen ! 


CHAPTER XI 

A NEW SENSATION 

C OLEEN had drifted into Garthage to make friends 
and enemies. At times he imagined he made only 
the worst possible foes. It was a great and most flatter- 
ing feeling that surged through his heart when he realized 
the kindly feeling the people of Garthage felt for his wife. 
Never had a woman so surprised him as did his own wife. 
The surprise, aloofness, and strangeness he expected (and 
he certainly shuddered with the thought), he never dis- 
covered. She may have felt very lonely and decidedly 
strange; but she entered into his life, knowing that what 
was his environment must be hers. Gracious, kind, 
sympathetic, dormant traits of her girlhood seemed to 
spring into life. How proud he was that he could be 
proud of her. How self satisfied was the feeling that 
she did him honor wherever she went. Not once had 
she stared rudely at the poorly clad, miserable children 
of French town. She pitied them. Years had come 
when every child was some mother’s child to Julia. She 
saw where things could be done to entertain the hope- 
lessly unhappy in uninteresting Garthage. She would, 
when she could, plan many joyful things in her church. 
She hoped to help in the school. She visited the sick. She 
had come into her own kingdom of noble womanhood. 

One day at dinner (they now owned their own home), 
she had been talking of the new mills that were soon 
to be built on the old farm site, and said: 

“John, I was never very deeply interested in your 
far flung ideas of healing sore towns and trying to 
create unity and the like, because I was taught not’ to; 


A NEW SENSATION 


85 


but somehow or other, I just can’t help getting right up 
on a platform and telling these business men how to get 
trade. I don’t know a single thing, only my woman’s 
instinct seems to tell me wherein they are so terribly 
wrong.” 

“If you can’t tell them, then tell me. It’s a mighty 
dangerous thing to let anything original loose around me. 
May be I can give it to them alive in the paper, you 
know.” 

“And John Dear, if you are going to print some of 
my suggestions in your paper, do tell them in your own 
forceful way, that all merchants, whether in Garthage or 
in any other town, should endeavor to make more effort 
to please the women than they do at present. 

“Being the product of a larger city myself, and hav- 
ing always lived in one until I came here, I realize how 
much more the merchant of the large city ‘goes after’ 
his trade. 

“To wait until customers decide that they actually 
need something is poor business, and does not tend to 
bring in the dollars very fast. 

“The merchant must create the need for things that 
he wants to sell! ! Then first of all he must have a 
clean store with bright shiny windows through which his 
customers can see. This does not cost him any money. 
The manufacturers whose goods he carries are only too 
anxious and willing to make a good window display for 
him; first one, and then another, until people begin to 
look for something new from time to time, and watch 
for its appearance. 

“Tell them, John, that eighty per cent of the BUYERS 
of this big country of ours are women ! The other twenty 
per cent are the men who buy for their businesses. 
Women are attracted by good looking store windows, 
and it is needless to say that after looking into the 


86 A NEW SENSATION 

windows, it is quite natural that they will want to know 
what is inside. 

“Here again the store-keeper can make the dollars 
come to him much more quickly, if he will take an inter- 
est in his business. 

“If a woman goes into a store (or a man too, for 
that matter), and the proprietor or one of his ‘trained’ 
clerks (because^ every man who keeps a store should 
‘train’ his helpers), approaches her with a pleasant greet- 
ing and the desire to be of service to her, she is im- 
mediately complimented by his attention, and his store 
looks attractive to her at once. If his goods are placed 
to attract her interest and his store is clean, and she can 
get SERVICE right at home, that same woman would 
never think of sending out of town for what she wants. 
He will have her trade always. 

“I have gone into stores again and again here, and 
asked for something which they did not happen to have. 
Perhaps they never kept it. Not once has one of our 
merchants said to me, ‘that he would try and get it for 
me, as soon as he could, if I would be willing to wait!’ 
Who is to blame in such a case, the buyer or the seller? 
Is it any wonder that women (who are the greatest of- 
fenders by sending away from home for what they think 
they want, or think they can get cheaper) will patronize 
some mail-order house, when the local merchant is 60 
very indifferent? 

“Would the merchant in the large city let such a thing 
go unnoticed?? Never!! 

“There the clerk is instructed that if they are ‘out of 
the article’ (even if they have never kept it), to take 
your name and address and send it to you as soon as he 
can possibly. This is the same, whether you are a stran- 
ger to him or one of the regular customers. 

“As it saves you the trouble of looking around yourself > 


A NEW SENSATION 


87 


you appreciate the attention, and next time you want 
anything, you go back to that store, and perhaps keep on 
going and become a ‘regular’ customer. That merchant 
is bound to please you and is responsible for the goods 
that he sells. 

“The great trouble with the merchant of the small 
town is, that he has allowed himself to get into a rut. 
He just hates to make the effort to pull himself out, be- 
cause it is such a hard pull for a little distance. Conse- 
quently, he gets rustier and rustier and the good looking 
catalog with the attractive pictures takes the place that 
he should have in his community. 

“People who buy from mail-order houses do not real- 
ize that they do not handle the nationally advertised 
articles. If they do, they are not ‘pushed’ in their cata- 
logs, and only occupy inconspicuoua places, while the 
goods on which they make the largest profit have the 
largest picture space. The innocent buyer does not know 
this, and he thinks the article must be very superior, be- 
cause it is so well written up. 

“Every merchant in every small town (even the man 
who keeps the general store in the farming community), 
can do just as much for his customers as the mail-order 
house, a hundred or two or three hundred miles away. 
But he must ‘coax’ his customers back to him, after they 
have once left him, and return ‘good for evil.’ 

“In the large cities all the stores have ‘Schools’ for 
their clerks and salespeople. In these schools they learn 
just ‘how to sell’ and what to do to please their custo- 
mers, because the owners of these tremendous places of 
business never come in contact with their customers. The 
competition is so great that nothing is left undone to 
attract the customers into their stores. 

“All kinds of clever advertising is resorted to, and the 
cleverest methods of selling. Accommodations of all 


88 A NEW SENSATION 

kinds, such as rest rooms, stationary, wrapping of parcels, 
mailing stations, etc., are given customers free of charge. 

“The country merchant who wants to compete with the 
mail-order house must ‘sit up and take notice,’ or else 
he will soon find himself without a business of any kind. 
He must advertise! Not like the city merchant, but by 
having the most attractive store in his town. He must 
get the story of his business before his customers in 
some way. 

“He must not only welcome people who come to his 
store, but he must help them buy. Oftentimes people 
do not know just what they want, or if they cannot get 
what they have come for, they leave without making any 
purchases, while if the merchant or his clerk would 
suggest something which might do quite as well, they 
would not only buy it, but other things as well. 

“I am only a woman, but it is the women who buy 
everything for the home and the family, and they should 
be highly considered by the merchant who wants to in- 
crease his business and the business of his town. Women 
would never have resorted to mail-order buying if the 
local merchants had been awake to their opportunities. 
If they do not begin to realize the danger now, it will 
soon be too late. 

“If the women in all the women’s clubs in the smaller 
towns of this country were aware of the conditions that 
exist in their towns, there would soon be a change, be- 
cause when women go after things they usually get them. 

“What I have said seems harsh, but the merchants can 
be the very greatest factors to bring brightness and clean- 
liness into the lives of the dirty and unkempt people who 
come to buy from them. A few do make the effort, but 
you can count them on the fingers of one hand. The most 
of them do not seem to have the ambition to make any 


A NEW SENSATION 89 

greater effort than their competitors. I declare that I do 
not know whatever they aim to do.” 

“And you will never know,” he replied. “Julia, I 
don’t think they are ever going to light until something 
pulls the pegs from under them, and I’m the fellow 
that is going to do it, just as sure as I live. I’ve got my 
hold, believe me, and I’ll hold on with bulldog tenacity 
until everyone of them calls a halt. They knocked me 
down and kicked me when I was down, and I haven’t 
forgotten it! But back on that farm of mine I’ll give 
them all the competition they want, and I’m ready to 
begin it right now. I have planned the dandiest little 
layout over there that can be imagined, but, of course 
Holmes and Neugart are backing me. I’ll make this 
town better or you bet it has to be the cabbage patch 
after this year. I started out to do it and I will. I’m 
like the electric light company here — they’ll damn me if 
I do or don’t, so Johnnie is going to play his hand.” 

“And I’ll stop the soap order ladies,” Julia laughed 
mischieviously. “Or, perhaps, you’d like me to be one 
of the fifty or sixty soap order agents we have here?” 

“I know something about it, of course, though not 
very much. Do they bother you?” 

“The soap order clubs are one of the many foes in 
Garthage,” explained Julia. “No, I cannot 6ay the 
women bother me; but I do explain to many of them 
the error of doing this work, how it is sure to suppress 
business here, and I have pointed out to them the cheap, 
miserable returns for their labor. I do believe no class 
of women is so universally despised as soap agents. They 
came in droves in Pittsburg, until I hated the sight of one 
of them.” 

“But soap is a cheap article, not much damage done 
with that, is there?” 

“It gives a woman, any woman, the desire to get 


90 


A NEW SENSATION 


something for nothing. Just as you say in your editor- 
ials, it furnishes the wrong doctrine. In the first place 
they bother people and often get orders through sym- 
pathy or just to get rid of them. They work harder 
at the job than one of them would at any other trade 
in the town. They would meet with far less vexations 
were they to do sewing or even the most menial work 
Garthage or any other town has to offer.” 

“What do they get for their orders, money?” 

“Money? Of course not! Maybe a chair that is 
shoddy, a baby cart that isn’t what it is represented to be, 
or a pair of those cheap imitation Nottingham curtains. 
They get something less than nothing. Maybe they are 
satisfied, I sincerely hope they are; but, John, candidly, 
I don’t think there is anything on earth so extremely 
undesirable in a woman’s house as trash or enlarged 
pictures. I do wish these poor souls could see in some 
homes and — why, here is Father Jarenski, just in time 
to dine with us. But you must, indeed you must!” 
and Julia hastened to make a place for him at her 
tiny table. 

“I was just telling Mr. Coleen something of our soap 
order fiends in this town, how foolish it is for women 
to follow it up. I wonder why women do those things 
so blindly?” 

The priest looked at the bright, animated woman at 
his right, then at the bouquet of white flowers and minia- 
ture green ferns that graced the center of the table. 

“I believe you are one of the women who expect 
fruit and not flowers. The older I get the more lenient 
I am with persons who have lived under great and severe 
conditions. You cannot expect the unenlightened to 
think as do those who have lived different lives. Now 
I do not believe in women soliciting soap orders or buy- 
ing from strangers in far distant cities, none of that, 


A NEW SENSATION 


91 


simply because I know the mistake they make. But I 
think that so long as they do not know, they are to be 
pitied and informed.” 

“Informed is correct,” smiled Julia. “I used to think 
it the biggest piece of nonsense to preach this stuff to 
the general public; but, honestly, the public, even in the 
great cities, is anything but well informed.” 

“It makes a great difference, my dear young woman, 
what we think and do, as well as what we are or may 
be. We need to measure up to our citizenship as much 
as to our Master’s ideal and purpose for us. In my 
position I pray ever to be able to give to those who 
turn to us with their emptiness, their hunger, their 
sorrow. You are in a better position to point out 
material conditions.” 

“I don’t believe that, Father Jarenski,” laughed the 
happy listener. She disliked him to be too sober of 
thought. “It is your duty to preach soap and not soap 
just as much as it is mine or John’s or any other per- 
son’s. You could preach the use of soap to those poor 
bewildered Polish people, to the women of French town; 
and goodness knows to many of these outside districts 
where people just exist. Do they want to live, these 
foreigners, or just exist and get back to their country? 
Think of how they could live if they cared for them- 
selves, their homes, their children ! How can they 
have bright, fresh, healthy thoughts when they live in 
the ramshakle homes they have and do not aspire to 
anything?” 

“Mrs. Coleen,” answered the priest, placing his fork 
carefully on his plate. “Do not be offended if I say 
that you are not wholly acquainted with their differ- 
ent lives. You see only the ugly surface. I do not know 
very much myself, you know; but I speak these dif- 
ferent languages. I get at the hearts of these people. 


92 


A NEW SENSATION 

I, too, know that many of them have more today than 
ever before; others have less. True, they speak a 
foreign tongue; but you would, indeed, be surprised 
did you know how many splendidly educated men there 
are among these miners, men fitted for better positions, 
only hampered by the want and need of money so 
necessary to further their purpose. I know this. Our 
first foreign arrivals are difficult to teach and often so 
poor, so ignorant, so bowed down with great burdens, 
that even an existence is all they crave. I can’t do 
much with them, try as I will; but the younger gen- 
erations learn too rapidly. Remember America is not 
a nation of American-born people. It is made up of 
foreigners! And foreign born people are your leaders. 
Don’t think we fail to advise; but, dear child, the 
hardest day’s work a man has to do, is to tell others 
how to live and get them to do it. Isn’t that true, 
John?” 

C T got shot for it,” laughed John. “But Father Jaren- 
ski, you don’t want to dampen Julia’s ardor now; for 
we had an awful tussle of ideas on this subject before 
our ideas dared collaborate. She was a member of let 
the fittest survive. Now she wants to kill off the mail 
order traffic too and annihilate the soap order ladies! 
But, bless her heart, she is going to do one thing fine 
and good. She is going to bring Sonia here and give 
her and the baby a nice, clean, respectable home. Sonia 
can learn a lot here. She is bright.” 

“Now you have the idea. I wanted to say it, but 
feared to; but don’t you know that the very reason 
that so many foreigners do not live differently is because 
they know of nothing different. They see nothing else. 
Not one of the better women in Garthage would take 
a foreign woman into her home on a social equality. 
They hire them! Say what you will, you can’t make a 


A NEW SENSATION 


93 


high stepper out of a beaten dray horse. You can’t 
do it. At least not when some are working under the 
yoke of American made servitude.” 

“Maybe my plan will work in the new Garthage,” 
explained Coleen. “Of course the work must go slow 
for awhile. But you know as well as I that these 
mines are going to shut down. They don’t agree, the 
operators and the miners, and just as sure as you live, 
you will see at least half of our people here without 
labor before snow falls, mark that. It means they 
must scatter like so many lost sheep; and the com- 
panies will not carry them through strikes or even 
permit them to live in those miserable shacks. I hope 
that we can have some houses ready by that time to 
receive some families, for there will be an abundance 
of work for the men. I don’t propose to have those 
workmen’s homes planted down in nasty, dirty, muddy 
holes, with only cinder paths leading to civilization. 
There will be decent, respectable buildings, not all of 
one design, and it is our purpose to give to all persons 
the opportunity to purchase the houses, provided they 
do certain things to prove their worth. We can help 
the workmen if they help themselves. And, Father 
Jarenski, if I can get the interpreters I want and need 
to copy my stuff, I can get the idea to them before it 
is everlastingly too late. We have to have the working 
men with us and it is our duty to help them to become 
worthy citizens, and I am like you, I do not believe 
they can do it, living as they now live.” 

The pleased look that came into the old man’s face 
showed his approval. “What then?” he inquired 
eagerly. 

“Well, for one thing we will have stores, offices, 
public buildings, and one of our first buildings is to 
be a community building, very much on the order of 


94 A NEW SENSATION 

one they have over in Washington, Pa., and we shall 
have a man hired for the express purpose of seeing 
that every place is carried out systematically. You 
can’t make a town without system. You can put one 
man in to engineer the work intelligently, with the 
aid of his co-workers, then we can hope for something 
definite. After a while we want a small theatre, and 
that strip on my farm that widens at the back with the 
rise of Laurel Hill can, in the future, be made into 
a small but very fine park, leaving much of it in its 
natural beauty. It’s too bad the wide part did not 
face the river — I’d be rich enough to go ahead with my 
plans; but you know my land narrowed there. At 
any rate we can get the street car franchise, and the 
steel companies erect their own railroad to the main 
line. Everything is coming our way. I intend to fight 
the bitter foe, the mail-order traffic, and fight like all 
possessed to suppress it. If it gets a start over there,” 
pointing in the direction of the city-to-be, “we may just 
as well build right on a volcano.” 

“It is wonderful,” answered the listening old man. 
“May God give me the years to see the fulfillment of 
your noble plan. My people, oh, my poor down-trod- 
den people! Their lives will be transformed into the 
grace and beauty of Christ, and the weary ones will 
see hope and have new faith in God.” 

“I hope so,” was John’s simple reply. 

“All men are not in the pulpit who teach holy faith,” 
replied the faithful one. “Will you prepare an article 
which you want printed? I know a splendid young 
man who is finely educated who will interpret for you, 
and we can send copies to the different papers which 
our people read. This, and only this, is the way to reach 
them. They live to read their papers. It is their only 
touch of the life they love best. Yes, yes, why of 


A NEW SENSATION 


95 


course that is the way. Coleen, you are a smart man.” 

“No, I am not. I’m human, that’s all.” 

“Yes,” was said so softly by the old man that the 
single word was in itself a sort of benediction to the 
one man in Garthage who believed in the work he was 
doing. 


CHAPTER XII 

BIG STEEL PLANT 

W INTER with its bleakness crept into the mining 
valley and hunger, lean like a nursing she wolf, mur- 
derous in need, white-fanged and blood-thirsty, prowled 
unmercifully among the unemployed. The strike was 
indeed a strike, falling with the impact of an iron 
sledge on the shoulders of men who asked nothing 
better than to go into the dark, dangerous underground, 
there to dig away at the hard coal until their cars were 
filled for the day. It was a sad case of wanting to 
just fill coal cars, nothing else. It was, in reality, the 
only work some of them could do. With faces clean, 
or shirt sleeves thrust back, exposing sinewy, hairy 
arms, the skin was bleached to a whiteness which 
showed that little or no sunshine had touched them 
the summer through! And the companies ordered 
these men from the houses. 

Where small gardens had grown during the summer 
(for all foreigners have a small garden when possible), 
only bleak yards of frost-bitten weeds and ugly corn- 
stalks confronted them; then came the storm, the ice, 
snow and freezing weather. Miners and operators 
fought. Operators sat in leather-cushioned seats in fine 
hotels — miners huddled’ in wretched homes or saloons. 
Better far was it for the miners to be at work. Time 
to them meant food and shelter. The northern lakes 
were coal-bound with acres and acres of coal ready for 
market. Operators could afford to wait. Blind, and 
stubborn to their own good, the miners contended for 
the few extra cents. They lost when they gained a 


BIG STEEL PLANT 97 

point, as does every working man who doesn’t follow 
the man with the money. Deny it if you dare. 

Hungry mothers gave birth to babes who dared to 
live. Sickness brought the mine physician who, thanks 
to his benevolent heart and good pay, was helpful to 
them. The union paid him or he might have refused 
many calls. He dare not do so. 

In the midst of financial depression, discontent, sick- 
ness, death, destruction of property, quarrels, murders, 
drunken rows, came this clarion blast from Coleen’s 
paper. 

“Citizens’ meeting gave encouragement to the pro- 
posed enterprise by subscribing stock. 

“A large meeting of citizens was held at Garthage 
Monday night to encourage the building of a steel plant 
costing one million dollars. The project is backed by 
West Virginia capitalists. Many of those present 
pledged to take stpck in the concern. 

“The impression seems to prevail that on account of 
the splendid coal deposits and the good shipping facili- 
ties, that the mill owners have practically decided to 
locate this mill on a farm adjoining town, that strip of 
ground known as ‘Dilly’s Peninsula,’ and owned by 
John Coleen, editor of this paper. 

“While it is generally conceded that much of this busi- 
ness is a transaction between Messrs. Neugart, Holmes, 
Coleen and others; yet some of our leading capitalists 
propose building a finer and larger electric plant and 
it is also expected that the gas companies operating 
across the creek will merge with the big plan which will 
begin work at the earliest possible moment. 

“It is fortunate that the proposed site is promising 
for the steel plant, inasmuch as it is out of the flood 
district, and the river and railroad shipping facilities 
are the very best. To be honest, it is not a dream or 


98 


BIG STEEL PLANT 

a false hope ; for we can expect this to materialize which 
will be in the nick of time for many working men 
throughout the Ohio valley.” 

***** 

Interpreted as it was in the different languages and 
printed in foreign papers, published in America, it sent 
a ray of hope to a half-starved Garthage. It takes 
but little hope to put new zest into a man or a woman. 
At best the most of us live on hope and at times realize 
its fruition. 

Spring came slowly that year. It hung back with 
many a sob and backward step. Men defaced the earth 
where busy laborers no longer could wait the fickle 
favors of good weather. Ugly shacks to accommodate 
workmen were rudely erected. Haulers of wood and 
drawers of water splashed in mud with millionaires. 
Miles of steel railway, tons and tons of steel, iron, 
wood and wire were dumped into the debris and, owing 
to system, found place at the quickest possible moment. 

And John Coleen was their systematizer. It was 
Coleen who made a business of system. He preached 
it, prayed it, wrote and printed it; but more than that, 
he put on hunting boots and waded into it. He was on 
the ground floor. He was not the unkind task-master 
which every man feared. He was the cautious, careful, 
businesslike man who had to be obeyed. 

His first order of system was to discharge one of his 
foremen for reading a newspaper while on duty. Coleen 
saw him reading and told him he need not work that 
afternoon. 

“Why not?” asked the foreman, removing his cigar, 
ready for any discussion. 

“Because you must read the paper,” replied the busy 
man. “I want you to read it. Get out of it all you can. 
But you are no earthly good to us if you don’t work 


BIG STEEL PLANT 99 

for us; so when you finish your paper, come back to work 
tomorrow, or leave.” 

And the man left. But the story remained; and men 
who wanted work, who came there to work, jumped 
at the sight of a newspaper. 

The wearied men whose lives heretofore had 
meant only the darkness and depression of the coal mine 
took to the new work with new energy, revitalized 
ambition and revived hope. The destitute wives who 
had passed through the starvation time with the little 
provided, only God and the labor unions knew how, 
sang again with the pleasing knowledge of cupboards 
replete with food. 

With remarkable rapidity, despite the weather, the 
steel plant grew from its strong foundation into a steel 
skeleton of enormous proportion. In all its nudity, 
openness, barrenness, it represented almost a prayer 
shrine to. the working men who toiled on the structure 
for daily wage. Then came its final touches and lastly 
the end of the contractors’ job when every office was 
swept clean and the workmen turned to fresh duties. 

No man watched the work with keener interest than 
did the Polish priest. No person knew that in the 
depths of his noble heart many misgivings had come 
and gone the past winter. His heart was seared with 
the apparent futility of prayer. He was a man among 
men at times, still full of that grit and determination 
which finds some of its zeal in muscular strength. He 
knew the dignity of labor and its ever present need, 
though he wondered time and time again, that work 
was not more proportionate to the ones who did it. 
Either the burden was too heavy or it was entirely 
lacking. He had seen women, poorly clad, unshod, 
bowing their backs to carry home the heavy bags of 
coal which they had picked along the track. And some 


100 BIG STEEL PLANT 

of these women had been prosecuted for the tiny theft. 
It was the same pitiful story each time — to keep from 
freezing! He had seen one strong man refuse wages 
in the mine at a certain rate, then take some laborer’s 
job for a dollar a day, while refusing his own and taking 
another man’s job! But why he did it was just another 
howl from the misty past when animals locked horns in 
the wilderness of the misty era of our first beginning 
the eternal fight for supremacy which has only changed 
in its plans and ferocity with greater cunning and less 
labor. 

When the priest prayed, he often wondered why he 
did. When he saw at last the steel mill in its state of 
usefulness, he looked above its towering heights to a 
place far, far beyond the mundane sphere of earthly 
things and he thanked God with all the fervor of his 
soul for what He had done through John Coleen. 

And he told John Coleen to celebrate. And. that was 
not the least original, for it was the editor’s intention 
to have one rousing jubilee at the beginning of Garth- 
age’s rejuvenation. 

Coleen almost refused to celebrate the new industries 
in the town proper, preferring it on his own ground, 
but he finally relented. In his heart he really wondered 
if anything could be done for Garthage, the Garthage 
which received him, revived itself for a time, then fell 
shattered as if every support beneath it had crumbled 
with dry rot. To boost it, he would not. Still there 
was material in the town he must use. It was not 
the location he needed or its old houses or warehouses. 
There were brains, brawn, mentality, help among some 
of the good people. The only fault had been their own. 
They never tried to make Garthage other than a camp- 
ing place. They never saw beneath the rich surface the 
wealth hidden from human eyes. They saw only the 


BIG STEEL PLANT 


101 


filth, dirt, grime, the yawning mouth of a black serpen- 
tine. Something seemingly crawling back into the earth 
that meant death to the laborers. Those who could 
chase the elusive dollars did so with astonishing alert- 
ness or else satisfied themselves with what they received. 
Ambition was not totally lacking; but there were far 
more leaners than lifters in Garthage, that stagnation 
which actually thrives under pitiful illusions, unlovely 
surroundings deadening sameness. 

Garthage could be made a fine town commercially 
and industrially. It was a fine trade center. It needed 
energy and enterprise. And, for the first time in its 
history it had what they could proudly claim as a 
genuine Board of Trade, now ready, as the paper stated, 
with facts, figures and pictures for its active operations. 
It was from them the following invitation was sent 
broadcast. 

“The Garthage Board of Trade, representing the 
commerce and industry of the city, extends a cordial 
invitation to investor and homeseeker to come here and 
prosper, and to our visitors and auto tourists a hearty 
welcome to tarry with us and enjoy the many good 

things we have to offer. May 23, 19 ” 

Jollification 8 P.M. John Coleen, 

Charles E. Holmes, President. 

Secretary-treasurer. 

They came, some in automobiles which were new and 
sensational contrivances at that time; others traveled 
in the ever ready family surrey with its hearselike 
fringe bobbing to the breeze, or they walked. Every 
available tree, post or fence that made a suitable hitch- 
ing post held captive the ox, the ass, and the kids’ 
Shetland ponies, but they came; for Garthage promised 
pleasure with business and a lot of prizes for those 


102 


BIG STEEL PLANT 


who held lucky numbers. The bait was truly inviting. 
And why not come ? 

The affair was attended by thousands; far more than 
the Board of Trade hoped to be preesent. Possibly 
it was the fine weather, after a long and dreary season, 
which cajoled most persons from home. Splendid as 
was the meeting, not one thinking man or woman got 
away from the plain, simple, forceful speech made by 
John Coleen. He was not, in the real sense, an 
orator. He lacked the quality which makes a speaker, 
that peculiar something which is born with the elocu- 
tionist. But he had that faculty which is potent in 
business, a terse, powerful, forceful style that drives 
home a fact. 

He told them what was contemplated. He told it 
cleverly with many opportunities for a hearty laugh. 
He touched the pathos of former reverses, told why 
they had been fruitless; then with one powerful swing 
at the whole crowd, he presented every phase of his pet 
idea to boost for home, and home alone. There were 
living examples before their very eyes of rottenness 
and decay in the heart of their industry. He showed 
once more the need of sanitation, cleanliness, system, 
more system, and always system in whatever duty a man 
performs. He bitterly assailed the spineless creature 
with no purpose in life, but reached out a kindly helpful 
hand to the man who was eager to rise. 

Sweeping from these facts he showed how one town 
after another had been stripped of its all by the blind, 
ignorant, grasping people who dealt with mail-order 
systems. He showed how unfair are the manufacturers 
throughout the country who sold to these sharks the 
very goods which the large concerns could use in strong 
competitive force against the small dealers in just such 
towns as Garthage. He read of incidents filled with 


103 


BIG STEEL PLANT 

countless tragedies. It was not a picture of fancy; but 
a strong, wonderful thing that was a foe of the 
deepest evil, and cajoled into their very midst by the 
mistaken idea that it was a friend. He had not prepared 
his speech. It came from his heart, and that which 
comes from the heart and speaks from the lips, goes 
home to the one it is meant to reach, whether it is a 
song of love, or a curse of righteous indignation from an 
abused victim — it rings true. 

John Coleen had made his best speech. He knew it 
when he sat down. He had tasted the first bite of a 
fruit that had grown from the weakest slip that ever 
tried to dig its tap roots deep into the cinder earth of 
Garthage. 

Business men listened as never before. Within a 
maze they saw exactly what the editor meant: that no 
business is going to prosper which does not unfurl its 
banner of success each day: “Keep up the whoopla” 
as Coleen had said, was slangy perhaps; but it suited 
the occasion. It meant to open doors to the public 
and invite them in; but it meant more than that; for 
it was an invitation to see something and not be cheated 
when you did go in. 

Garthage was to grow. It was going to grow fast. 
There were to be fine buildings, splendid industries, 
new promises of greater possibilities in the trade ac- 
tivities; but there would be a radical change, and that 
change had to come with system. That thing which 
had been the bane of Garthage from its beginning was 
to be assailed by a systematic onslaught until it was 
utterly defeated. 

“NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE MONEY 
YOU MAKE HERE, YOU SHOULD SPEND RIGHT 
HERE AT HOME.” 

All men applauded this. 


104 


BIG STEEL PLANT 


“This town offers fine opportunities now for begin- 
ners. We don’t want grafters to come here hoping to 
pluck us. We want the very best men the country can 
offer to come here and be public spirited. Bring your 
families, live with us, die with us, and if you want to 
be shipped back to the old farm when you die, we’ll 
attend to that. But you have to go straight; for we 
want to demonstrate the fact that a town can be run 
on a basis that hasn’t a string to it or a rotten founda- 
tion under it. We haven’t had a boom. We are not 
exactly expecting that. We will travel in the sturdy, 
steady pathway of men who get there after a time. 
All around us are farms, gardens, forests and streams, 
which make the scenery a constant delight, and this 
scenery is but the curtain of our big stage. We will 
equip and conduct on modern lines, or all get in line 
and beat it for the Dead Sea.” 

Coleen turned to hear some remark. “What’s that?” 
he inquired, smiling at the man who had just muttered 
something. 

“I just said, ‘Does he think we are a regular old 
Coxey’s army?’ ” 

“You bet your sweet life we are! The private can 
order the brigadier general shot at daylight if he doesn’t 
suit him as a brigadier general ; and the brigadier general 
can shoot the cook if he doesn’t get his potatoes done, 
or order the whole army out on dress parade at five 
o’clock in the morning; but it’s an army all right and 
you are one of us.” Then with a jolly laugh, he looked 
his man in the eye and said: “But, Jack, you’ll never 
get shot in the back.” 

The man’s eyes flew wide open as if some person 
had exploded powder in his face. And Coleen looked 
at him, through the eyes, down through his very old 
beer-soaked, reeking, filthy body to the remaining spark 


BIG STEEL PLANT 


105 


in his heart which God had preserved for possible hope. 

Coleen had never been sure of his man. What he 
had meant as a mere sally, that the man would not run, 
being too lazy to do so, was one of those strange freaks 
that bring facts to the surface, like explosions in water 
bring up dead bodies. 

Strangely, however, Coleen did not read the truth; 
but Jack Olmstead thought he did. That week Olmstead 
went West. And no one asked why. 


CHAPTER XIII 

CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

N O pioneers of olden times worked with more grit or 
determination than the promoters of bigger Garthage. 
As it grew in size and beauty, it gained in the number 
and strength of its financial institutions. Graceful 

buildings of cement, wood and brick ornamented the 
noble town. The trolley development, possibly, 

brought about the first great aid. It contributed much 
to the upbuilding of the town in its relationship to the 
suburbs. The town’s growth was due to that ironclad 
determination to move ahead. The little lamb, weak 
kneed and wobbly had died. A lion took its place, 
roaring and snorting, king of trade, master of men’s 
destiny and ruler of progress. 

Garthage prospered. Coleen grew rich. He made 
money and that money made money for him. He had 
reached the summit of some ambitions. He had patted 
the big engine on the head to hear it purr, and it did 
purr for Coleen. 

But one day he came face to face with the one woman 
on earth he wished the most to avoid. It had been pos- 
sible, for she had been in Europe. Now she was home. 
She was living within the sunshine warmth of Garthage 
and he knew she was there, without having seen her. 
But the day came, not as he had really expected it to 
come, for he had driven the picture from his mind so 
many, many times; but each time she came to him where 
first he had met her, and in the sublime beauty of youth 
she looked fresh lipped, virginal pure and desirable, and 
still just beyond his grasp. But they met face to face 


CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 107 

on a beaten path, leading from Garthage. She stepped 
aside and he did too, then as if God, earth, heaven and 
all things good and true had meant it for them, they 
touched hands — and knew! 

They said nothing but commonplace things; but 
they knew. He saw the light that comes into the eyes 

of a woman who tells how beautiful is her love and soul 

when eyes become the soul’s silent interpreters. No 
word was spoken but each sensed the overmastering 
tide of love which flowed from heart to heart. 

Something hit him or at least it effected him physi- 
cally like the first effect of a shock. He had felt that 

queer sensation, not in his heart, but right in his very 

body, when he heard that his child had died. He had 
the same feeling when he saw a man killed before his 
very eyes at the railway crossing. He knew the dull 
thud when he faced death or danger. And once it had 
come to him while he was sorting mail. It was so dull, 
so heavy, so depressing. Every muscle in his body 
strained against the pain. His veins seemed to seep 
blood into fresh arteries that never before had known 
the flow of blood. Animal instinct, call it what you 
may, only call it something, sensed in the woman, the 
frail flower of humanity, that mate he desired, the 
woman he loved, the mother of children he never would 
know! 

And yet they say we have to be in our grave to be 
counted as dead; but no man’s natural death will be 
half so severe, let it come as it will, as the deathlike 
hope that makes him despair of owning the woman 
he wants — for that is man for you. 

So they parted as they met and he went home. He 
could not eat, he did not eat; he could not sleep. 
He thought and thought and thought. He loved Julia. 
He loved Natalie. He wanted Natalie. He would not 


108 CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

give Julia up for anything, but that very night he 
instinctively drew away from his wedded wife. Some- 
thing, and he thought it was what was fine and good 
in him, repulsed the sham, while almost suffocating 
for love in its tormenting reality. He pressed his head 
down into the soft warmth of his own arm on the 
pillow. Then he resolved that he would have the 
woman he wanted, who wanted him in spite of all the 
powers of darkness. 

In the morning he had no compact at all with hell. 
He kissed his wife, left her in their home, went to his 
work and thanked God in his soul that work is the one 
panacea for love that means nothing more in its material 
form than “a vision of the air, a dream o’ summer 
nights/’ 

But he wanted Natalie, and he wondered why God 
did not give him the strength not to want her. He now 
knew the weak link in the chain of his physical makeup, 
nothing but the slip of a girl, years younger, oh, so 
much younger, who had sent melody into every fibre 
of that part of him which belonged to God — his soul. 

But a throbbing desire is like a sobbing child. It 
will sob itself to sleep; but even as it sleeps, it sobs 
in its slumber; and so great and powerful loves that 
have sobbed themselves into some form of numbness 
will unconsciously turn, writhe and moan in tormented 
sleep. 

God is love. God made love. But nothing in 
heaven is grander than love in its reality; or blacker 
than hell in its imitation. And so many accept the 
imitation that it is little wonder they do not fear hell. 
They almost innocently think the time they have suf- 
fered on this earth should be taken off time they must 
do in that misty, strange, promised beyond, where no 
person goes to come back with the assurance that earthly 


CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 109 

love is a foolish and unwise desire, when heaven is all 
love. 

Coleen tasted the Dead Sea ashes, bitter as gall, and 
with all the sickening, disgusted, tormenting desire that 
came and went. Avoiding danger as he would a pitfall, 
he bent his energies to the one task of making money 
and so become a money king. But he was poor, horri- 
bly, miserably, unutterably poor. 

Fortunately there was his work to occupy his mind. 
It is known that every genius has periods of depression. 
Just why it is, no person has ever been able to explain. 
But each man knows the best remedy for it: WORK. 

It was singularly strange that a man in middle life 
should cling so fondly to a mere love affair which the 
ordinary man dismisses with the coming of the morrow. 
But there have ever been characters, usually persons 
of extreme sensibilities, that have every warp of their 
affection woven into the woof of some beloved af- 
fection, the scarlet meshes that cannot be unraveled 
and, sad to say, do not fade! 

That is the only excuse for the tenderness of real 
love which this man endured for a young woman who, 
at the most, had merely flitted across his pathway, 
then far from him. But she came and went in his 
memory existence and all the goodness in him could 
not banish her from those secret meetings which no man 
sees and God alone understands! 

During one of these moods he left Garthage on a 
sojourn throughout Ohio in his new automobile. He 
was boyishly interested in the machine. Julia went with 
him. He enjoyed her companionship. He wondered 
just how he could live without her, and this was but 
one of the many trips he took which proved helpful 
to him in a thousand ways and carried a message to 


110 CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

distant ports where the dry rot was causing business 
decay. 

One day his car glided into a picturesque little town 
on one of the misty blue hills of Ohio. He drove 
slowly through the town and was able to get a mental 
survey of the place. The old-fashioned houses huddled 
back in unkept yards. True, a few modern houses 
were in fairly good condition, but not actively so. A 
few children played on the street; immense beds of red 
and white petunias looked lonesomely from different 
yards. The shade trees certainly were centuries old. 
A lazy dog walked across the road, seemingly indiffer- 
ent to the approach of the car. Several boys were 
playing a game with jack-knives on an old-fashioned 
horse-block. 

He turned to his wife. “Julia, I wonder if they know 
Lincoln is dead?” 

She gazed at the complete desolation of the town. 
“I do not know. How pathetic it is. Call it living if 
you want to; but here is the kind of town that sends 
its boys into the large cities, those big-hearted boys 
who can’t endure this existence. How lonely girls must 
be living here, if, indeed, any do live here. I suppose 
it is like the average small town, a place where every- 
body is classed by the church he attends and he must 
ever live according to its strict mandates and precepts.” 

Coleen drove over to the one Inn. It was a delightful 
old place, set far back in a large yard. There was 
some attempt it appeared to keep the place presentable 
and inviting. There they stopped for their noonday 
dinner which was excellent. 

After dinner, Coleen sat on the wide veranda with 
the proprietor, talking of the town. The proprietor 
was satisfied, he secured considerable patronage now 
from automobile parties. He was glad they were on 


CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 111 

the national pike, the best road in Ohio which induced 
persons to travel to his Inn for chicken and waffle 
suppers. Then his immense parlors made ideal dancing 
halls. Yes, he was satisfied in every sense of the word; 
but he knew that other men in his town could not 
boast his success: they had no business. 

“Has the mail-order business touched you too?” 
Coleen asked. 

“Long ago,” replied the old man. “It came like one 
of the biblical plagues, settled down here and never 
departed. It has sucked every artery dry. Not a 
vein of industry has a drop of business blood in it. 
Dead! Dead! most woefully dead.” 

“Then why do persons remain here?” - 

“Well, you see it is this way. We used to have dif- 
ferent industries. We had at one time, a great many 
years ago, a large woolen mill here.” The old man then 
perched his chair at a comfortable angle, for nothing 
pleases the old patriarch of any town, like the oppor- 
tunity to talk of the heydays of youth and prosperity. 
“Yes, we had a woolen mill, a silk factory, two tanneries, 
several tan yards, seven pork packing houses, two saddle- 
ries, a cabinet-making shop, one large grist mill and a 
cocoon factory. I earned my first dollar carrying mul- 
berry leaves to that factory. They fed the silkworms 
on mulberry leaves and we boys were glad to earn a 
‘shinplaster’ once in a while. Well, of course, you 
see how we are situated here, too far from the river, no 
railroad near us, so the larger towns grew up around 
us and that naturally took some trade from us. But 
nearly every family in this town made money, plenty 
of it. We could have kept the place up, fine and good; 
but, as I said that mail-order traffic played the deuce 
here, and our stores could not compete. Understand?” 

“Yes,” answered Coleen. “I understand.” 


112 CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

“Then our young men left. Old cods like myself, 
with enough to pull through, have remained. You know 
it is the law of nature for the old to die and that is 
our fate; but the young, why they leave. We have 
furnished senators, surgeons, professors and the like 
to the country; but we have not been able to keep 
quality or quantity with us.” 

“Why didn’t you fight it?” 

“Fight it? I’ll tell you why. Just as long as some 
of us had a dollar, we did not fear any competition. 
A man feels safe when he knows he has something back 
there in the old red bank. Then the whole thing fell 
through like a rotten honeycomb from which every 
particle of honey had been drawn. We have old men 
in this town who actually would be in the poorhouse 
today were it not for the pride of sons and daughters 
living away from here who support these aged men and 
women. You see we had nothing to spur us on until 
too late. We could have held on to a lot of business 
right here ; though I don’t believe there is a man in 
this town, not one, who can say he is making a decent 
living. I don’t do it myself until summer comes, then 
I have everything coming my way. The town won’t 
rise. It can’t. When I was a little lad, we had a 
magnificent tannery here. It did an enormous business 
too. The old man, Bradley was his name, owned half 
the town or had a mortgage on it. Men had one ever- 
lasting time to get out of his clutches. He was worse 
than any nigger slave driver; but not quite so bad 
as the mail-order octopus. He got what he was after. 
I can remember when we kids thought it was a treat to 
step back and see that old money wizard drive by in 
his fine carriage with his family. Well, a good many 
changes take place in a man’s life. That old man’s 
granddaughter lives here today, poor as a church mouse, 


CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 113 

hasn’t a cent and the church is keeping her. Things 
will take a turn, now won’t they?” 

“Sometimes,” answered Coleen. 

“We never had a Ways-and-Means committee here, 
did not even think we needed it. I don’t believe we 
ever did anything with very much vim but try to 
nominate a Republican president when the time came 
around, and we all did that, and not a chap ever got 
anything for it. I’ve been here almost seventy years 
now and if you were to ask me what it is for, I couldn’t 
tell you. We live from one mail time until the next 
and doze.” 

“Doze is the word,” laughed Coleen. “I guess a 
lot of American people are dozing. I don’t think Rip 
Van Winkle had it on a lot of men, for some never 
did wake up and what is more, they never will.” 

“Your town is not a bit different from others,” ex- 
plained Coleen. “I see them everywhere I go. In a 
large sense you had better protection than towns which 
grow up over night and die as soon as the sun strikes 
them. You have made money here and have kept 
a lot of it, probably enough for all you need; but it 
does seem a shame that once a town is started and has 
some promise, that something comes along to disturb 
it and not enough public spirited citizens will drive 
it away. I think the meanest, lowest, most unnatural 
citizenship is the kind we see letting good families move 
away, without trying to keep them. And you can’t 
keep enterprising families with you if you can’t offer 
them a living.” 

“That’s very true,” replied the old man. “Only 
this week we let a good teacher out here, a man who 
has a fine family, a worker for the town, interested in 
everything alive, and he goes, and a young bachelor 
comes to take his place, a fellow who has no family 


114 CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

and will pocket his cash and go away, as all of them 
do.” 

“I understand that too. I have seen it ever since 
I was a little fellow. It is unnecessary to make any 
argument for home buying to the persons who regard 
their best interests as bound up with community pros- 
perity and realize that enlightened reciprocity pays; 
but too many fail to consider these things and some- 
times it is hard to reach them. 

“The reason I gather this stuff is because it is my 
business. I am editor of a paper and you know we 
voice the public and also talk to it. I — what’s that? — 
yes, it is a thankless job at times; but you feel mighty 
good when you reach the right parties. I have talked 
with men, men you really would imagine wanted to 
get along, but who hadn’t the backbone to stick up for 
their own rights, and it was just that much time wasted. 
The hardest day’s work a real citizen can do is to enlist 
the hearty support of a lot of citizens to fight for home 
buying, the most potent factor, too, in the upholding 
of a community. You give your old man Bradley, or 
Brady or whatever is his name, a hot shot for unprin* 
cipled business trickery; but I’ll be switched if I don’t 
admire the spirit in which he went about it. Maybe 
money was all he got and all he wanted; and, of 
course, the church knows just where he went; but, 
just the same, his name is a monument of business in- 
tegrity. A lot of men get that name more through 
jealousy than wrong dealing. I know men who have 
made vast fortunes who could have added fortune upon 
fortune, and done it merely in secret session with men 
who only asked that these very men would ‘come 
across’ in a big deal, and they would not do it. You 
don’t have to be a highway robber, thief, grafter or 
professional pickpocket to get money, and I know men 


CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 115 

(they are personal friends of mine), rich too in vast 
fortunes, who do business on a perfectly legitimate 
basis and won’t get in w 7 rong to land something bigger. 
I know some who have made it mighty easy, just as 
I would say to you: ‘There is a pile of kale, go to 
it',’ and you would go, and go in a hurry. 

“Brainy business men who can do the work have that 
‘kale’ pointed out to them. Then when a fellow has 
his own little pile, he can turn it over and over and it 
works like a waterwheel, day and night. What gets 
a man, a right thinking man, and I hope I am one, 
is to be so little, so narrow, so self-satisfied that he 
hasn’t the gumption to fight and centralize his own in- 
terests. I just quit living in a hole like that, the mining 
town of Garthage — What? — Yes, indeed I am from 
Booming Garthage. I began in the mining town. I 
went there several years ago and it was dying too of 
mail-order scurvy; but it had enough good citizens there 
to cure it. But here comes a customer for you, and I 
must be off.” 

The men shook hands. Coleen had not told of his 
own big deals, how he, more than any man in Garth- 
age, had been the leader in “I-won’t-come-across” in 
anything like an underhand deal. He didn’t do it. He 
wouldn’t. He had one weak spot in his heart, an 
incurable one; but it hurt no person but himself. He 
had not revenged himself on old Garthage. He found 
that unnecessary. He did create competitive trade 
which made the business houses move, turning their old 
places of business into gaunt-eyed shacks; but he did 
it legitimately, while all men looked out. He was 
justly proud of their civic pride. He had cause to be. 
But even as conditions were, there was no cause or 
reason to give up the fight. As weak material as ever 
lazed in old Garthage came with the first boom and, 


116 CIVIC PROGRESS AND DEAD SEA FRUIT 

like the old hotel keeper, propped back their chairs. They 
expected some of that type. What they needed most, 
though, is what they got, men of business integrity to 
see that progress thrived in spite of every opposition. 
And it was no half holiday game to do it ! 


CHAPTER XIV 

IN THE TOWN OF THE FIGHTING CHANCE. 

T HERE was a coming man in Garthage. It was Fran- 
cois Zilki who for several months had! interpreted 
many of Coleen’s editorials. While it was a new posi- 
tion for him, it was no novelty. He interpreted 
correctly but slowly, too slowly for the general reporter. 
Later he went on the editorial staff; but Coleen who 
readily detected the reportorial quality in any man 
who makes good at writing, did not wish Zilki to get 
into the newspaper game. That he would make a 

remarkable journalist, Coleen knew at the beginning 
of young Zilki’s writing. 

There isn’t a thing that a young reporter considers 
impossible. He is adaptable, credulous and imaginative. 
He even believes in fairy tales. His ambition is never 
handicapped. But Zilki did not measure up to these 
qualities. Hie was deeper. Too painstaking for rapid 
fire work, he took the time to do his work with that 
exactness which is not a full requirement in the news- 
paper office. Facts, not logic, are the essentials. So 
Coleen weathered him carefully, the foreign sapling, 
the green timber, ready to branch in almost any direc- 
tion. Bad handling would ruin this promising youth. 
A masterful influence, some material help, an insight 
into what so often is hidden from a foreigner on our 
shores, were necessary. He was a thinker, always and, 
naturally, a comer. His mind took long excursion trips. 
It was a Christopher Columbus trip with a discovery 
at the end of his journey. Fortunately, too, he could 
quickly detect the sham and idle subterfuge in almost 


118 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

everything. It would be a shame to block his endeavors 
when there were greater possibilities for the man. 

It was this candid opinion of Coleen that sent him 
to Zilki one day in their new office and in his man to 
man talk he told Zilki just why he wanted to put him in 
the position of Secretary and General Manager of their 
Community House. 

“With your idea of foreign affairs, as related to every 
. business center; with the command of different languages 
at your disposal; with your keen insight into what 
every community needs for its upbuilding, I hope I 
am not wrong in making the guess that you can fit 
in this place without a hitch. True, there will be 
some opposition, I fear; for the office is a good one, the 
pay exceptional, which makes it desirable for other men 
to obtain. You just happen to be better prepared, that 
is all, and if you want the job, why we men will do all 
in our power to get it for you. It is the chance of 
your life and I want you to accept it.” 

“I will,” was the simple reply. 

Zilki had snatched his brand from the burning. His 
handsome face lighted with the pleasure that comes 
with success. It vibrated through his body like a 
charge of electricity. Awake, up, ready to do, he 
showed the effect of his first success. The open op- 
portunity before him would offer opposition; but he 
never stopped when he reached a stone wall. He went 
right through. Zilki was a business psychologist. He 
studied the queer twists in the business world as a little 
chap studies the inside of his mother’s best clock, 
when he gets an opportunity; then puts it together to 
see that it runs right. It is easy to dissect business 
interests; but quite the reverse to put it together. It 
develops so many slips in the cog and it must be ad- 
justed to be of practical use. 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 119 

“The trouble with a position of that sort,” said 
Zilki, when the idea was fully understood, is just this: 
“It is largely one of giving advice. Even as a child 
I would never take advice from any man or woman 
unless I knew he or she followed it. In business I 
never took it unless I knew the man who gave it had 
made a success of it. I have never taken a letter of 
recommendation from any man, because I am my own 
recommendation. I have borrowed money, plenty of it. 
I did not want to starve; but I paid it back. I was 
no less a man for that than nine-tenths of the financiers 
of America who borrowed to live; only I wanted bread. 
I put my heart and soul into my work and that, I 
think, intensifies a man’s interests.” 

Coleen for a few seconds did not reply. The man 
was voicing a truth; but his listener was not absorbing 
it. He was wondering who this young man was. 
Once Father Jarenski had said to him: “Mr. Coleen, 
I never look for fine bloom from mullen stock. I never 
have found instances of brilliant intellect, superior ed- 
ucational attainment or business possibilities when the 
stock wasn’t good. I have found young men in humble 
families, persons destitute of almost every human need, 
who have risen to wealth and distinction; but I always 
found that in the family was that indefinable something 
that strikes deep in the embryonic state. It has to be. 
We will pick up our qualifications from the old gen- 
erations.” 

Who, then, was Francois Zilki? He lived alone. 
His companions were few and his only interests were 
in books, papers and magazines. Being passionately 
fond of music he went where music could be heard and 
his chief loafing place, when he did loaf, was with 
Charlie Holmes. Holmes liked him immensely. He 
felt that in Zilki were the countless things all men 


120 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

look for in a man they truly admire, and grieve when 
they never find them. But Francois Zilki had real ideas 
and they were not mendicants. Such men who have 
fresh, wholesome ideas are either queer or exceptional. 
They find ready market, once they are recognized as 
idea producers. 

Coleen gazed admiringly at his assistant. “Zilki, 
who are your parents? You are not ordinary. Who 
are you?” 

The large brown eyes, usually made handsomer by 
the humor in their depths, narrowed. But he trusted 
Coleen; always had. 

“I am a child of love, they tell me, and I know very, 
very little concerning myself as I was taken from my 
native home almost at the hour of my birth to hide 
the shame. My parents, so I have been told, were of dif- 
ferent class, mother a beautiful peasant girl, remarkably 
lovely so they tell me, and my father was of the nobility. 
They really wanted to marry. They thought no opposi- 
tion would be made when I was born. But there were 
troubles. My father left Poland after mother’s suicide. 
He may be dead for all I know. No person ever 
heard of him from the day he left. I was not a week 
old when my mother killed herself. I was well cared 
for by persons who kept me; but my benefactor died, 
leaving no provision in the will for me, so I was cast 
out on the world and it was Father Jarenski and his 
sister who kept me from starving. I have never imposed 
on those good people, only in my younger years. No 
person knows what good friends they have been to me. 
Many times I went to him for help, not knowing what 
next to do, and he would say: ‘Francois, I can help 
you; but please go see what you can do for yourself. 
If you can’t earn anything today, come back to me 
tonight.’ ” 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 121 

“That's Father Jarenski for you," said Coleen, deeply 
interested. “Did you go back?" 

“Not often; for when I got the idea into my head 
that he was trying to produce some latent power in 
me, and was so proud when I overcame any obstacle, 
I tried the harder to please him. He is a wonderful 
man." 

“Indeed yes," answered Coleen, then quickly turned 
from the subject. Lying on the desk was a manu- 
script. 

“New?" he asked. 

“No. I wrote that last winter. I don’t care. Read 
it if you have the time and patience. It is one of my 
verdant offerings." 

Coleen glanced at the heading, “Commercial Hum- 
bugs" and smiled. Then walking over to the east 
window, he sat down in an easy chair to burrow deep 
into the sense, nonsense or logic, written by the young 
man who was to prove a power in the community. 

“The only way to kill a snake is to chop off its head. 
The only way to despatch a humbug is to destroy its 
industry. 

“Christ once attempted to rid the world of humbugs 
by striking dead the liars, but soon was forced to stop 
it, as it was discernable that in a short time He would 
not have people enough left to man an Indian canoe. 
Many persons have the idea that all wars were largely 
for the same purpose, though innocent lives helped to 
pay the penalty. 

“There are various kinds and classes of humbugs, but 
reduced to the last analysis, stripped of the sugar- 
coating by which they impose on the public, they are 
one and all simply high grade professors of falsehood. 
Investigation has disclosed the fact that the majority 
of bur biggest humbugs operate one or another of the 


122 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

great stock-selling frauds. We see the same evil in 
every graft from the senate to Wall Street. Having 
found that American people love to be cheated and 
buncoed, their field of operation is unlimited. 

“I am somewhat inclined to the belief that humbug- 
gery is a disease and that some doctor will yet discover 
a cure for it — will demonstrate that the habit is due 
to microbes that get into a man’s mind and make trouble 
trying to turn around; or it may be certain bacilli that 
bore holes in his moral character to let the man’s 
honesty leak out. The medical fraternity has kindly 
informed those of us who are kleptomaniacs that we 
should be medically treated and not sent to prison or 
the whipping-post, since our malady is serious. This 
must be a sort of consolation to the reformed who 
would be cured; but works a hardship on the man who 
steals a sawmill and wants to go back after the site! 
To have an analysis prove that a man’s mind is out of 
plumb, that his liver has gone on a jag, that his entire 
physical and mental being is alive with germs, making 
a sort of menagerie out of him, certainly puts the 
ordinary thief in a new orbit. But that is the humbug. 

“I submit in all seriousness that we may be physically 
incapacitated for telling the truth by an insidous attack 
on the veracity by the dreadful falsehood fungi and that 
the best way to restore man’s moral equilibrium, to 
remove him from the category of chronic humbugs is 
to fumigate or shoot him. ,, 

Coleen thought of the shot he had received in his 
own back, and laughed. 

“What’s wrong?” Zilki inquired. 

“I’ll fire you if you speak again,” laughed the editor. 
“I’m your definition of a humbug and I guess you 
know what one is. Don’t you think we are all a set 
of humbugs about something or other?” 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 123 

“Sure. If it isn’t a national humbug it may be a 
local humbug.” 

Coleen turned the sheet, and read. 

“Science has not yet succeeded in mastering the 
disease; but give it time to save the world! A medical 
name will be furnished every human frailty and just 
to look at a man’s tongue or test a drop of his blood, 
extracted from the back of his ear, as they now get 
that drop for a small order, they will be able to tell 
whether the man has office seeker hysteria, mail-order 
malaria, or just ordinary hay fever. What they will 
discover will be of great benefit before it is everlast- 
ingly too late to cure it. 

“Many good ‘Christian’ people have a touch of the 
complaint. The trail of the serpent is over us all. 
Even young ladies are colossal humbugs at times. They 
sell and buy patent complexions by mail; pad out 
scrawny forms, and many recipients are instantly trans- 
formed from erstwhile bean-poles into voluptuous Junos, 
the better, they think, to bedazzle, ensnare and deceive 
the willing sons of men. 

“In America as abroad, especially in Paris and London, 
these soft-voiced angels arrange marriage by mail, with 
the aid of the public press. Many American periodi- 
cals assist in this strange business. If the soft voices 
that woo by mail turn into rasping buzz-saws of dis- 
content after leaving the marriage altar, why two persons 
are humbugged, that’s all. At least we hear it this way 
which, is proved, may be only the bitter complainings 
of discontented husbands, tired of the great American 
humbug, after being soundly beaten at his own game. 
Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever in- 
vented at which it is possible for both players to lose. 
Many premeditated misdeeds breed blanks and booby 
prizes. 


124 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

“False pride is the father of humbuggery, the parent 
of hypocrisy. Men are humbugs because they desire that 
their fellow men think them better, braver, brighter and, 
perhaps, richer, than they are. They practice humbug- 
gery to attain business standing and social position, 
having no real prestige for a showing, and nothing they 
are entitled to by birth or brains to acquire wealth for 
which they render no equivalent, all to procure power 
which they cannot wisely employ. History is full of 
these humbugs. Liberty only too often is clothed in 
the garments of the humbug and hides as a gilded lie! 

“There can be no truth where trickery usurps the 
throne of honesty. We see it right in Garthage. It 
is not in one form of business alone, but in almost all. 
The worst, as I see it, is in mail-order traffic, the first 
evil that we fought in the genesis of our town. A 
bigger enemy never came to maim and destroy. How 
wise men can court it, passeth all understanding. 

“When the writer was a boy in Poland we had a 
circus in our village. A huge reptile, something of the 
boa constrictor kind, got away. Women were terror- 
ized; men were afraid to pursue it. Even its manager 
knew how deadly was its sting. Finally they lured it 
into an immense vat and thus saved its life, not wishing 
to destroy it. That’s the dishonest business reptile in 
our country. Everyone is unafraid so long as it does 
not hurt them. Everyone believes it something worth 
while until they get stung. It is always too late to 
destroy an evil after it has done its death-dealing work. 

“I am not going to say that all catalog trafficking is 
based on deception, dishonest advertising or fraudulent 
misrepresentations. But I do know that very little of it 
is what it is represented to us. Even if it were, of what 
earthly use is this far-distant trade mart to any com- 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 125 

munity which would preserve its own industries and 
live thereby? 

“The man who patronizes the mail-order houses is 
weak. P. T. Barnum sounded a truth when he said 
‘Americans wanted to be fooled’. The humbug bobs 
up in every walk of life, in every branch of business, 
in every profession, in every society, in the church, in 
fraternal societies and in sports. An effort to furnish 
an inventory of all the humbugs designed and put into 
operation in this country would necessitate the publi- 
cation of a volume as large as the complete works of 
Dickens; for wherever there is anything genuine, clean, 
wholesome, there is to be found a spurious imitation! 
Wherever there is a positive, there is a negative. And 
the reverse of this statement is true. In order that 
there may be an imitation there must be something of 
original value to be counterfeited. It is the counterfeit 
which becomes the marketable commodity to sell at a 
distance, cash in advance. Money down! These hum- 
bugs are enabled to secure the money principally 
through misrepresentations. Pictures are nothing but 
lying deceptions when used commercially to sell ‘some- 
thing just as good’ under the guise of its being the 
best. 

“The humbug that sold stock by mail in oil wells that 
never will be drilled, in all sorts of wild cat schemes, 
prospered and still prospers, despite the fact that, at 
last, the Government did take a fleeting glance at this 
wretched humbug and demanded that it sit down and 
not talk. But its bubbling enthusiasm babbles on just 
the same, government or no government. And desert 
land, swamps, the white fire destroyed orange groves, 
land where the tarantula is lord of all he surveys, goes 
to the humbug who becomes an advertisement victim. 

“Now tell me why they do it? If you fool a man in 


126 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

his own home, church, town, or right in his business 
house, he makes a terrible row. Then he makes a deal 
with persons he does not know, gets gulled, and keeps 
quiet, not wishing to have it known that he was such 
a boob. 

“They say business men are shrewd. Some of them 
are more than that. Still we have men in business who 
got there with money they never earned. They have 
the simple faith that it works for them without busi- 
ness impetus. Even these men send thousands of dollars 
to humbugs to invest it for them. And they do. Be- 
lieve nothing but please believe that. They invest 
every cent of it — for themselves. 

“Instead of investing money at home in some safe 
and sure investment they often decline with the remark, 
‘that it does not look just right to them.’ I have known 
men to make vast fortunes from something simple at 
home which other men never recognized until too late. 
Its very nearness frightened them. As distant fields 
look greenest in springtime, so does another man’s busi- 
ness promise more profit when we pass his place of 
business in a thriving city, though it may be rocking 
back and forth on a mortgage that won’t hold it a day 
longer. 

“It is a crime to a nation to sell shoddy goods or 
adulterated food stuffs, fraudulent specifics for every 
known disease, legal counsel, medical service, political 
advice and spiritual consolation. In point of fact every 
city numbers among its inhabitants a class of citizens 
who, from choice or necessity, live by their wits. They 
are local humbugs if they don’t happen to be ‘southern 
gentlemen aftah the wah,’ playing the races or just 
ordinary rooster fights in a disorderly quarter of the 
city. These are the poor but respectable humbugs 1 
There are so many of this kind down south, so we are 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 127 

told, that we wonder how they find the means of keeping 
up intimate relationship between the soul and the body. 
Up north we know: A rich man who has poor relatives 
to keep, starts a poor farm and puts them all on it. All 
humbugs have the Get- Rich Quick itch. It attacks them 
first in the palms of their gloved hands and the bottom 
of their empty purses. They put on their best and sally 
forth to meet the believing public. 

“With the mail-order men it is done largely by clever 
advertising. I say clever knowingly. It is exceedingly 
clever. They prepare the entire plan of operation 
through the medium of the press and its hypnotic in- 
fluence. I challenge any man or woman in the world 
to refute that statement. I can prove it. Every busi- 
ness man knows of companies of this kind that have 
been promoted and floated where, in the literature pre- 
pared for submission to the investigating public, every 
objection, every question, every criticism, is met in 
advance, and yet the schemes are frauds from the very 
inception. The whole thing is just as flimsy as the 
Christmas stocking purchased for a little child from a 
mail-order house. It contained everything a child ought 
not to have. It was a tarletan affair, decorated with 
red and green yarn tassels and filled with junk which 
no sane mother would give to a child. It was a com- 
plete discord of one cent novelties that exuded sugges- 
tions of bacteria from top to toe. 

“You are going to find the same red and green yarn in 
all of these schemes. You can’t get a packed stocking 
of gold nuggets by the mail-order route. 

“Mining is a legitimate business as everyone knows. 
In the gold mining regions of the West and in Alaska 
and Mexico, in the copper mines of the North and 
Southwest, in the coal and iron mines, enormous fortunes 
have been made at times by fortunate men, not, however, 


128 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

by small investors who live far from the scenes of 
operation. 

“A doctor who accepted a deed to a supposedly worth- 
less tract of land in northern Minnesota in payment 
of what he considered a worthless account for medical 
services, collected royalty in iron ore mined on that 
land which amounted to $80,000 a year for several 
years. A certain prospector for two years peddled from 
town to town the minutes of a valuable mineral prospect 
he had discovered, but he could interest no person 
with the necessary capital to develop the property. His 
clothing became torn and threadbare. Often he went 
to bed tired and discouraged. . Finally he met the men 
he needed and became a millionaire. 

“There are many such cases, but for every mine that is 
opened which pays a dividend or a profit to its owners, 
there are a hundred fake mines, claims that lie ‘next 
to’ a paying mine and are, ‘therefore’ on the vein; 
claims where the outcrop ‘indicates’ unlimited wealth; 
claims where an ‘alleged shaft’ has been sunk and but 
little money is needed to buy the machinery to work 
the rich rock, etc, etc. The same order of affairs is found 
in oil booms. Mostly they do even better than mines, 
for many persons have an idea that oil can be found 
wherever there is a well drilled to discover it. But oil 
is found in pockets, and one brother becomes rich on 
his little barren farm while his brother on an adjoining 
farm finds no oil and never will. 

“All of this is pursued by numberless humbugs. They 
frequently work by secret methods. They whisper the 
secret. They come to sell you space in a mausoleum 
or stock in a mine, oil-well or just ordinary lightning 
rods. And when they look like easy money, a lot of you 
cry out as did the Pharisees, ‘Lord, I thank thee.’ The 
same old spirit we find in the pretty, pretty mail-order 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 129 

catalog with its dresses, shoes, boats, hen food and other 
things, millions of them, that we want even if we do 
not need them. And that little humbug in his No. 16 
brogans trots right along, ready to show you which way 
to head for financial destruction, and you follow right 
along. 

“Strange that there wasn’t something like this: ‘Thou 
shalt not hum with the humbug’. 

“The federal government has been forced to intervene 
for the purpose of protecting the unwary and unwise 
from the evil machination of this very humbug. Many 
fraudulent schemes have been rooted out. There are 
more to come. Said a certain man : ‘When some officers 
go to throw out a lot of rotten mess they go about it 
like a woman emptying a can of fishing worms.’ But 
the man who said it, failed to say that the men who do 
what we call the cleaning up business, are looking through 
those garbage cans and junk piles, hoping to find some- 
thing valuable for themselves! Maybe just a little hum- 
bug to hum to them.” 

***** 

The door opened softly and a little boy, immaculate in 
his white suit and hat, came into the room. He laughed 
happily when he saw Coleen and ran up to him. 

It was Sonia’s little son, Tony, who lived with the 
Coleens. The little chap filled every corner of the edi- 
tor’s big, hungry heart. 

“Well, Tony, what do you want?” 

Tony crept between Coleen’s knees. His humorous 
smile revealed the sweetest face imaginable, laughing 
eyes, a moist pink mouth, not too small, splendid eyes 
like his mother’s, and a chubby, healthy body, properly 
and neatly clothed. 

“I want a penny to get candy.” 


130 IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 

“A penny to get candy? Oh, pshaw, Tony, you don't 
think I'd give you a penny to get candy, do you?” 

“Of course, you will. No, I did not run off. Mamma 
called me and so did Mrs. Coleen; but I didn’t hear 
them! Please give me just one cent.” 

Coleen swung the boy high. “Tony, you shall not 
suffer for it. Here is a whole great big nickel.” 

The boy wriggled out of his captor’s arms and stood 
at a distance. “I wanted a nickel, but I said ‘penny’. ” 
Opening his little hand, he displayed an elephant nick- 
nack. “I brought this to you.” 

Coleen took the small cake, looked at it and listen- 
ed to the patter of boy footsteps reverberating along 
the hall. Then he walked over to Zilki’s desk, laid the 
manuscript on it and said: “Frank, I’m awfully glad 
you are going to marry Sonia. I think she is one of the 
grandest young women I have ever known and she is a 
splendid-looking woman too. We will miss her. You 
can have Sonia this winter; but you bet you don’t get 
Tony. Oh, I know Sonia won’t give him to me; but she 
ought to. I’m crazy about that kid. Isn’t he a beauty? 
Julia loves him almost to death. Every morning we hear 
his little bare feet pattering down the hall over home, 
then he comes in and gets in bed with me. A man is 
never a man until he knows just what it is to have a 
little kid crawl in bed with him to keep him from going 
to sleep. 

“I’m going home to lunch now; but we will run that 
story of yours in tomorrow’s issue. It’s the hit dog that 
howls, and that will hit some of them. Queerest thing 
on the face of this earth to me, that you can tell the 
people all of that stuff and some of them will pursue 
mail-order trade or die in the attempt. After we get 
you over to the Community House, we will load you up 


IN THE TOWN OF FIGHTING CHANCE 131 

and if you don’t unravel this mystery of the catalog that 
we have here in Garthage, you’ll have to appeal to 
Father Jarenski for free passage back to Poland. It’s 
up to you, Frank; for you have studied every phase of 
it. I never suspected that the mail-order traffic would 
crop out again after our big fight early in the game. 
It reminds me of the time we tried to beautify Garthage, 
and also get decent, respectable officers over there. It 
lasted about as long as a child’s birthday party. I used 
to think you could talk to people like reading them an 
evening Psalm; but I guess you can’t do it. That is my 
one big reason for admiring Billy Sunday. He tells 
you the truth, whether he practises it or not. You have 
to drag in an old freighter at times who has been over 
the great ‘Divide’ and has had his profanity developed 
to a fine art, to talk to some of them. He don’t say, 
‘Come here, little Jacob,’ but he grabs up a whip, lets 
out a lot of profanity that suits the occasion, without 
looking for the wood-shed. I never could understand 
why a man takes a kid to the wood-shed to make him 
gallop around a peach stick. Any place is good enough. 
Never attempt to move an ox-cart with moral persuasion 
or Christian Science — or to down the cohorts of hum- 
buggery with sweet words. It won’t work. Heavens, 
but I’m hungry!” 


CHAPTER XV 

MATRIMONIAL VINES AND AUTUMN LEAVES 

I T was not her long, dark hair, which covered her 
small head, framing a sweet face in its braids, nor her 
dark, olive complexion, nor her mouth, which was pink 
like the lining of a sea shell, nor was it her innocence, 
shown by her girlish movement and looks, which had be- 
sieged and conquered the heart of Francois Zilki, com- 
monly called Frank Silky. 

At one time Sonia, the widow of Tony and the mother 
of the beautiful posthumous child, was not Frank Zilki ’s 
dream of a wife. He had lived many years in Garthage 
without so much as knowing or speaking to the young 
foreign woman. When she went to live with the Coleens. 
her ready wit, native pride, joy in everything which 
pleases the delicate sense of a woman, became forceful 
factors in her character. She grew into the life which 
she had never known. Being rather quiet and observ- 
ing, she “caught on” as Americans call it and where 
Americans generally imitate, it was Sonia’s talent to 
improve everything she learned or adopted. If she saw 
a dress that she really admired, she made something 
like it, only prettier; if a hat, apron, merely the arrange- 
ment of her hair, it was a compliment to its originator. 
Good clothes enhanced her foreign beauty. No person 
would have recognized in the young mother the same 
half-child who dragged her weary self into one office 
after another asking for any work that she might sup- 
port her baby in the best way she could, and often was 
flaunted in her bravest attempts. 

Francois Zilki was a bachelor, a man of peace, one 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 133 

needing companionship and wanting to be loved. His 
weariness did not come from the loss of a circle of friends 
who had married, leaving him like a circus horse, mov- 
ing along alone, the void in his existence which all 
bachelors feel when deserted by their men friends who 
take women into their intimate lives, leaving bachelors 
alone and, generally, severely alone. No, it was none of 
this. Zilki had passed Sonia a thousand times without 
knowing she was in Garthage. So close do we move to 
those who are capable of making heaven for us, we 
never recognize their existence until too late. Possibly 
had it not occurred that Zilki was invited to the Coleens’ 
for Sunday evening dinner, he would ever have been 
blind to the charms of the radiant Sonia. As a matter 
of fact, he loved children. It was impossible not to 
love Sonia’s boy. Just to watch the child playing, romp- 
ing, prattling with John Coleen, developed in most 
men’s hearts something delicate and much to be de- 
sired. 

Sonia was so happy. She radiated joy wherever she 
went. As a rule all women are at their very best in their 
own homes. Coleen’s home was so truly her own that 
never had she felt the oppression which comes to the 
stranger under a new roof. Julia accepted her as a mem- 
ber of the family. The two women made it a home. Some 
went so far as to say the reason for this was the love 
which the Coleens felt for little Tony and not wishing 
to have him taken from them, they permitted Sonia to 
live with them, doing just as she pleased. It was un- 
kind to say this; but no person took the trouble to 
think or look for any real cause or reason that Sonia 
should be a real member of the editor’s family. But 
she certainly was. Often she arranged the table with 
the utmost care, artistically placing flowers where they 
were the prettiest. She instinctively knew, though one 


134 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 


wondered how she knew, just which dress to wear and 
how to wear it. It cost her nothing to dress little Tony. 
That was an affair, a luxurious one, of the Coleen fam- 
ily. And in this new life, educated to the American 
form of living, she met Zilki and sat opposite to him one 
Sunday night while he dined with them. She enchanted 
him. He left the house thinking nothing except the ad- 
miration he felt for this splendid young woman. After 
that he met her many times and seemed to live in per- 
petual adoration. Sonia, long widowed, felt again the 
glow of love, a love too that would vibrate with a pas- 
sion which would create many delicious surprises for the 
young lover. Like most persons in love, each felt there 
were no other persons who loved just so dearly, the 
game all lovers play. 

Then they were engaged. The matrimonial vine in 
Garthage was bearing fruit. It often occurs this way and 
many marriages take place at almost the same season. 
With the announcement of Sonia’s forthcoming nuptial, 
merely the friendly gossip of people who knew both 
parties, came another, the formal engraved invitation to 
the home of the Neugarts! — Natalie’s wedding! 

Where matrimonial vines grew in wild festoons and 
formed glorious arbors for trysting lovers and design- 
ing cupids, there was a wilderness too in Garthage and 
autumn leaves fell on the barren earth, snow flakes 
touched a warm heart, and a man, in love with Love, 
read his own invitation and felt the whole wide world 
recede from him. 

He was going to lose — everything! 

And the man who knew him best, Father Jarenski, 
who but a few minutes before had read a similiar invita- 
tion, walked rather briskly over to Coleen’s office. He 
went into the private office where he found Coleen just 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 135 

as he expected to find him, sitting thinking with the in- 
vitation lying upside down on a pile of papers. 

Coleen looked at him, trying to speak. Once he had 
told Father Jarenski of a love affair, without mentioning 
a name; and he was thunderstruck when the old man 
sat down by his side and said: “I just wondered if you 
would need me, John, at this hour? Forgive me if I 
intrude. But I love you so dearly, even as I know you 
love this woman,” laying his hand like a benediction on 
the engraved invitation. 

Coleen frowned. For an instant he was angry. Then 
he knew that no person on earth meant to be kinder. 

“How did you know?” he asked. He heard his voice, 
husky and dry. “How did you know it was Natalie?” 

“How did I know? Why, John, you are as innocent 
as little Tony. I saw you the first time you kissed her 
and — ” 

“You — saw — me — kiss — Natalie — Neugart ? When ? ” 
He measured each word, giving emphasis to each. It 
was not believable. 

“I’ll tell you exactly when I saw it. I know it was 
the first kiss. It was shortly after you made that Fourth 
of July speech. You were driving home from Brannon 
and met her on the road. You were alone when I saw 
you first and I was hastening to the road to ask 
you for a lift. I had been over to Manuel Marco’s, at the 
death bed of his wife and my horse was injured while 
there, so I would not drive it home. I walked. I saw 
you Mr. — John. I saw Natalie walk with you and I just 
guessed the rest. You can’t prevent great waters from 
reaching and flowing together when they are going in 
the same direction. I never told you. I simply knew 
it. I know that you have met her since that time. You 
saw her not so long ago, I saw you kiss her then. I only 


136 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 


hope no other person saw you. You surely know where 
I saw you. I was up on Laurel Hill where I often went 
to watch the birds. I saw you with my field glass. 
You know just where you left your car. I know it too. 
John, I was sorry to see this frailty in you, but I’m 
honest when I say it. Such love mfust have a touch of 
realism in it or it would not be. You have acted your 
lie very, very well; but God knows I pity your wife 
more than I pity you or Natalie Neugart. But I pity 
any man who suffers as you surely have suffered. Many 
men go the limit. I am glad some retaining hand has 
opposed it in you.” 

Coleen did not speak. He revolved his chair slight- 
ly to turn his face from his friend. When he turned 
back to look at the old priest, his eyes filled with tears. 
“I can’t help it. I can’t help it ! I have worked, prayed, 
prayed and prayed, and this God that you rant 
about never helped me; never tried to. I don’t intend 
to pray again!” 

“That sounds very childish. But I wanted to come, 
even if I have nothing to offer. I never came to you as 
a spiritual adviser; and you never sought me as one. 
But I always came to you as man to man. Forgive me, 
an old man, if I have erred in this dark hour. Generally 
a man likes to talk to some person when he is troubled. 
I knew your trouble best.” Coleen got up. “Then come 
to me the night she is married.” 

Then Father Jarenski passed through the marble 
and mahogany hallway. He was a stately, God-fearing 
figure in that magnificent editorial office. He walked 
with bowed head, as one departing from the home where 
Death has been a conqueror. “If it were ordinary love” 
he thought, “it could be met with ordinary measures. 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 137 

He loves that woman, as she loves him. Ah, the world 
is sad for those who love most.” 

He turned at the corner, following a street lined with 
fine old trees which once had graced the woods on Co- 
leen’s estate. It brought him up to the Steel Mill hospi- 
tal. A nurse met him near the entrance. 

“Oh Father Jarenski,” she laughed, “our little patient 
is most impatient, waiting for you. Yes, Rosie is so 
much better. I think it wonderful that the Company per- 
mitted you to have her sent here.” 

Father Jarenski followed her down the white and cop- 
per hall, into a white-tiled room. A tiny, wasted form, 
lying on a white cot, smiled at the old man. He made 
the sign of the cross, laid his fatherly hand on the hot 
little brow. “Well, Rosie,” he laughed happily, “how 
well you are getting. I knew you could stand that op- 
eration. See, I brought you the ring. Oh, I never forget 
what little girls love, no, never.” 

He drew from his pocket a small paper box. In its 
pink cotton depths he disclosed a miniature finger ring, 
set with three pearls. Never had Rosie owned any- 
thing so beautiful. All formal thanks in the world would 
speak less eloquently than the smile of gratitude from 
such hungry eyes. Happy? She thought the world 
was a new found heaven. 

And the man who had never known a woman’s love or 
the pleasure of being father to a child, had gone that 
day to a man who was stricken to his soul, angry with 
God, defiant of all things honest and true; then to a 
child whose brutal father had almost killed a little daugh- 
ter in his drunken frenzy. The priest had waded through 
the verdant labyrinth of myrtle, roses and lilies, mythi- 
cal symbols of Love’s Court, only to leave for, where 
dry, rustling autumn leaves crackled beneath his 


138 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 


tread. The smile of Heaven was in the face of the 
child; the frown of Hades mantled a man’s brow. 

Oh, World, World, World, ought we to believe in 
the hopes that crumble like dry sand when life at best 
is so short, and we need those hopes? Why are so 
many desirable things withheld? Why is it the 
young man whose ambitions are ripe, who wants to 
live and prays to exist, is crushed in the prime of life 
with some malady, incurable, death-dealing, when 
some old man, a sufferer of many afflictions, a tedious 
member of his son’s family, or an intruder of his 
daughter’s homestead, prays nightly for peace from strife 
and living; and lives on? Oh, why is it? Why does Fate 
take a sweet-faced babe from a mother’s breast where 
she has nourished it from the hour of its birth, leaving 
her to wail in agony when she thinks of its lonely little 
grave in some cemetery, so far, far from her arms, when 
outside she hears the blatant scream of some frenzied 
mother, calling angrily for her child to come home? 
Then she hears the blow! Sometimes I think we would 
fare just as well to snatch what is at hand. We all 
would do it; but each of us knows! that roses stolen 
today wither with tomorrow’s sun, and everything 
tends toward that hope and moving ahead, forward to 
the Promise. If it be not fulfilled; what a lot of us 
will be gloriously fooled! 

Coleen tucked the invitation away. He picked up 
some copy on his desk. He read the first paragraph; 
reread it, tried it again, without knowing just what he 
was reading. The door opened softly. Tony stood 
in the doorway. “Oh, my Daddie, oh, my Daddie, 
I brought you something. I caught it for — YOU — 
in the water. I got it all for you.” He opened his 
hand, showing a badly squeezed minnow, the first 
fish catch that Tony had succeeded in landing. He 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 


139 


had caught it in his hat. The little dead trophy was 
carried to his best friend, the man he often called 
Daddie. 

The laugh saved Coleen. He looked at the boy, 
then, at the dirty fish. He took it from the happy 
boy. “Tony,” said he, “you’re a regular little dandy. 
One of these days we’ll go fishing in dead earnest, and 
we’ll catch a great big whale.” He caught the boy 
up, kissed him and held him on his lap. There was 
something eloquently peaceful in the touch of that 
little body against his own. He knew this child better 
than he had known his own. Little wonder that the 
aching void had been filled with love for a dead miner’s 
baby boy. 

In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a 
bright manhood, there is no such word as fail — it comtes 
later in life. Coleen closed his arms around the boy, 
sheltering him from that something which all men find 
in time. Then he let the little fellow down on the 
floor. 

“Come, Tony,” said he. “I’m going to take the 
fish home and you come too. I think you would look 
better if you had a clean face and a dry hat. Now 
won’t Sonia rave? No? You just wait and see. 
You are one magnificent object, I must say.” 

And the child never knew how his smile helped pull 
thorns from roses that day. He never was to know. 
But it did! 

After the foregoing article was published, Zilki was 
not surprised to read a letter, laid on his desk by the 
managing editor, Alvis Swearengen. 

“Chance for you to unravel,” said Swearengen. 

“If I don’t get excited,” added Zilki, seeing at a 
glance what the note contained. He checked himself 
and brushed back his hair, a movement he often resorted 


140 MATRIMONIAL VINES 

to when he did not care to talk. He was not exactly 
tactful at all times, and that was something he desired 
to be. Most men are supposed to be tactful when, in 
reality, they are nonplussed. But there was no timid- 
ity in the writer’s action. 

He reread the note several times, then laid it aside 
for future consideration. Most writers jump into the 
fray and fight it out. Others meet the man on the 
back stairs and both go down together, the reporter, 
as a rule, on top. He sprang to his feet, thrust his 
chair aside. “I’ll answer it tomorrow,” he said “I’m 
deeply interested in something else just now.” 

He left the office and walked over to the priests 
home, then down to the church where Theresa, said 
Francois would find the priest, her brother. He walked 
silently through the main part of the building, with- 
out glancing at the cassocked saints. He glanced at 
an eastern window, whose picturesque design was a 
mass of dull colors, playing riot in the evening’s after- 
glow and winged cherubims seemingly traveled toward 
him with waving palms. Some tarnished relics were 
lying near the chapel. In an ordinary tumbler was 
a bunch of fall flowers, carelessly arranged. Francois 
knew that little Tony had given the flowers to Father 
Jarenski. He had seen Tony with them. A crucifix 
was lying in another window. What was wrong? 
This was not the order of things? And where was 
Father Jarenski? He saw no person in the vast solitude 
of the poorly furnished church. He retraced his steps. 
But Father Jarenski was in the church. He was kneel- 
ing in devotion in an empty pew, always empty. Once 
it had been filled. Who were the people that filled it? 
God alone knows. Let Him keep the secret, A soul 
bathed in spiritual waters, rose to its new duty. And 
the pink, gray, green and blue lights from the old- 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 141 

fashioned stained window hovered over him as if the 
evening twilight came to carry the prayer afar. 

* * * * * 

Francois walked down to his boarding house. He 
glanced up several times — at the house where Sonia 
lived. That tempermental young woman, mischievous 
in her tenderness, dared to hide her sweet self, hoping 
to make him the more eager to see her that night. But 
she smiled in hiding. How happy she was! 

In his room that night, after leaving her, he turned 
to his old standby, the typewriter he had used for years, 
with its broken k and its crooked g and a ribbon that 
had gone to glory in many fiery mail-order sermons. 
His loyalty to the old machine, made him dust it once 
a year to show he really liked it. He put a sheet of 
clean paper between the rolls, yawned, thought of Sonia, 
then began writing. He could not do rapid fire work. 
He never had done it. It wasn’t in him to do it. 
Quietness brought wholesome thoughts, even as our finest 
ideas come to us at night-time, wooed perhaps by 
Morpheus who has the indecency to take them away with 
him at our waking, if we fail to capture them when it is 
possible to put those erratic fancies into captivity. 

Surprising indeed would it be were we permitted a 
midnight glimpse in writingland where nightgowned 
scribes sit up in bed, with nothing better than their knees 
for an improvised desk. With backs resting uncomfort- 
ably on crumpled pillows, minds thrilled with some 
ponderous ideas, you write, read it the next morning 
and wonder why you so foolishly lost that much desired 
sleep the night before. But it is done. 

It was necessary to answer the letter sent to the office 
by Albert Brownlee. Mr. Brownlee was deeply in- 
terested in every public affair, paid for by the other man! 
Once his “deepest sympathy” was placed tenderly on a 


142 MATRIMONIAL VINES 

subscription list for flood sufferers — and no sufferer 
needed it! 

* * * * * 

“Your article in Wednesday’s paper deals thoroughly 
with the Humbug, according to the writer’s idea. 
Merely writing it makes it no convincing truth. Why 
will newspapers furnish stories of this character to the 
reading public when they are unprepared to give at 
least some reasonable cause for it and a way to eliminate 
it? Personally I believe a man is justified in spending 
his money where he can obtain the most for it, provided 
he cannot find the article in his home town. Something 
practical on the subject is preferred to ‘a vision of the 
air’ with no more substance to it than a toy balloon.” 

Yours truly; 

Albert Brownlee. 

* * * * * 

Luckily Coleen found Zilki’s copy the next day. He 
carried it into his private office, read it carefully, frowned 
and sounded the call bell for his office boy. The boy 
was playing in the building and answered the third ring 
which irritated Coleen. 

“Howard,” crossly, “tell Zilki I want him!” 

Zilki appeared. 

“Sit down,” commanded Coleen. “Mr. Zilki,” he be- 
gan, with what the reporter knew was his style of ad- 
dressing him when discussing important affairs, “I read 
this,” pointing to the copy on his desk. “I’m not going 
to use it. When did you write it?” 

“Last night.” 

“What time last night?” 

“Late.” 

“After leaving our house?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I thought so. Crazy about a woman, half 


MATRIMONIAL VINES 


143 


dead for sleep, turn in home and whip up a thing like 
this. If you begin by lambasting citizens, telling them 
what they are right out loud, you will never make a 
reporter. A good newspaper man is not good because 
he writes what he knows: It’s because he don’t write 
everything he does know. Don’t forget that. You 
want to know everything possible about your man; but 
you must hold it back. Some fine day it may make 
good copy. I don’t have a morgue for that kind of 
stuff. I know Brownlee is an old sinner of the deepest 
black. If our society reporter told the truth she would 
be publicly whipped at a whipping post. We can’t 
tell the things we know, only when they do the most 
good. When we get a pot of this dye, why we save 
it and pour it out red hot on some political campaign, 
all of it. It makes a nice ripe story. The place for 
you, Mr. Zilki, is just where I propose putting you. 
I talked with Holmes, Cansby and others who agree 
with me that we can get you the place. Don’t get 
serious on this subject. I’ll hand the story over to 
Mr. Swearengen. He isn’t doing anything today so he 
can handle it.” 

“Is there anything you wish me to do?” 

“Of course. Do your usual work.” 

Outside the private office, Francois stopped, his eyes 
assuming the injured look of a child who had been 
wrongfully scolded. Never had he seen Coleen in a 
bad humor. The turn surprised him. The truth was 
that Coleen was to go into private conference with some 
men to pull off a big deal. It had been so arranged 
that some of his old enemies would get in on the ground 
floor if the deal came off. It was impossible to keep 
them out if certain other parties did not uphold the 
heavy end of the finances. Coleen ’s money was tied up 
in too many places to handle or even mortgage it. 


144 MATRIMONIAL VINES 

Holmes was in pretty much the same predicament and 
Neugart was sick in a hospital. He had never trusted 
Cansby who first consulted his wife. He felt there was 
a nigger in the woodpile someplace and it made him 
mad. 

He was angry all morning. He flung books right 
and left. He smiled but once and it was when little 
Tony came in without permission from any high mogul 
outside, leading a small dog tied to a rope strong enough 
to hold an elephant. 

“Ah, Tony, that dog will get away from you. Why 
didn’t you tie the rope tighter?” 

“He’s all right, Daddie, and he’s just yours as much 
as he is mine ! ” 

Coleen patted the brown head. To' please the boy he 
patted the dog. “We shall take good care of him, Tony. 
He is a beauty. Run home with him and tell your 
mamma to give him something good to eat, that I told 
her to do it.” 

From his window he saw Tony leading the dog home. 
He longed to be a boy again, happy, free, with a mind 
full of little boy’s fancies. Once he had had them; but 
how long ago it had been! He strongly believed in the 
doctrine that a man’s best help is the help he gives 
himself ; but somehow or other he did not believe it 
today. He had just torn a leaf from his daily calendar. 
The morrow week meant Natalie’s wedding day! 


CHAPTER XVI 

BUSINESS ETHICS 

S WEARENGEN handed in his article, “Conserve the 
Home Money.” 

“It ought not to be necessary to explain to Mr. Albert 
Brownlee, a public business rnjan, that the statement pre- 
viously made that certain mail-order lines were humbugs. 
If our reader has not made a study of it, we have, and it 
may be for the mutual benefit of others to know why we 
have faith in what we have discovered to call a humbug. 
Our term was decidedly mild, one excuse, perhaps, why 
it is not known as a humbug, generally being termed the 
octopus. 

“Every property value depends on everything adjoin- 
ing it. Exactly what will happen to a town, village or 
city which is inhabited by patrons of mail-order houses 
is what we see in neglect throughout the whole country. 
It is removing the money from a community, and no 
town can long survive the acid test of maintaining its own 
interests without money. Taking the finances from a 
community, its principle element of strength, its credit, 
the effect is inevitable, a weakening of the unit of 
strength. 

“Consider all the facts that you can get together and 
you have absolutely nothing to support your belief that 
a mian’s money does him more good if he expends it 
where there is no possible hope of its return at any time. 

“Our local merchants in a former business meeting dis- 
cussed this very affair, the cause of our sending money 
to these catalog houses. They know the injury it has 
done and is doing. They know the remedy, to run their 


146 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


business on a businesslike basis and give the best to their 
patrons; however they do not know which way patrons 
will turn in their ignorance and it is a truth that to deal 
with our buying public, to teach them this home truth, 
is the most important affair today in Garthage. 

“If only we could make converts of these unthinking 
men and women, especially the women who, if they make 
their wants known and see how readily the goods of any 
grade would be forthcoming, would grasp the idea — 
maybe. 

“Give local merchants a chance to figure! 

“It is as impossible to describe in print the conditions 
of girls employed by the vast city sweat shops, as to 
etch a discord or paint a stench. Before justice can be 
done to the subject, a new language must be invented, 
a language where words are coals of fire. Why repeat 
the story of the worse than little white slave sisters who 
toil at pitiful wage to make so many of these unlabeled 
garments for women who order them by mail. Surely 
you know the lives they must live when their weekly 
salary fails to give them necessary food, shelter and 
protection. It is because you do not see it that you can’t 
believe it. But beautiful womanhood lends its talent 
and gives its virtue to this Monster. There is no white 
throne of respectability for the down-trodden woman who 
accepts the menial work for a starving wage. You don’t 
hear the screams ; you don’t see the want ; but, perhaps, 
you read of the suicides! 

“There are great bargain sales in cities where rich 
women fight to paw over these articles made by the 
hands of dying girls. One snatches a waist, fashioned 
by a consumptive! A little apron, poorly made, was the 
finished work of a girl who put it aside as her last 
day’s toil. There is no time to compare goods in a so- 


BUSINESS ETHICS 147 

called bargain sale any more than is there an opportunity 
to examine what you purchase from catalog houses. 

“ ‘We can return it/ says one customer. 

“Not once in a long time will you receive your money. 
You get a voucher check for the amount which you must 
spend with the house, some way; for they have your 
money. 

“But let us get right down to affairs here at home. 

“Has any catalog house ever loaned you money to 
conduct your business? Has one of them trusted your 
wife, son, or daughter? Where have they helped the 
church, the schools or supported any charitable institu- 
tion? Did they ever do anything to help a young man 
stay in business right in his own home town? What did 
Garthage have to show a few years ago when this 
monster was discovered? Why had it not been seen 
sooner? How were we to kill it if we did not strike 
right at its head? How many concerns are doing busi- 
ness in Brannon our sister town? What is going on 
over in that sleeping village? Go to your banks and 
inquire how much money they believe to be checked out 
for goods, made and sold away from here. Ask our 
postmaster today how much has mail-order business 
dropped off. He will tell you it has dropped off thous- 
ands of dollars. We know on which side many of you 
err. It is on the strength of pictures that you buy. 
The illustrations in the catalogs of the retail mail-order 
houses look inviting; the reading matter sounds nice and 
sometimes the deal turns out all right. But suppose it 
does! Wherein is the buyer better off than if he bought 
from a local merchant? You can buy as cheaply at 
home, examine the goods, return them too if not satisfied. 

“Only an advertiser knows just what it costs to ad- 
vertise. It may surprise you to know that some of the 
catalog advertising costs from $42.00 to $85.00 an inch 


148 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


in single column. It is true nevertheless. Where does 
the profit come out of which these enormous bills are 
paid ? Out of the pockets of the consumers. 

“The shoddy imitation of silks, satins, laces and the 
like, wretchedly made to conform to some leading style 
pattern, and missing it by a mile (since too many gowns 
must be fashioned at one time to hope to be reall) 
modern when catalogs are issued), make up that riot of 
stuff which women buy. 

“You can detect the dresses as readily as you can 
pick out a country milk maid in a crowd of college girls. 
The dresses do not fit the individual for whom they 
are intended. Examine them and you will see sewing 
that you would not accept from your own dressmaker. 
There must be a profit, and the profit is not found in 
a better line of deceptive goods than just these dresses. 
Coats — well, look at them. Shoes ! Look for the trade 
mark, many are made in penitentiaries. 

“If any citizen wishes to be neighborly and fair, he 
will take no man’s word for the statements herein set 
forth. We know they are true; but we do not ask you to 
believe us. But we do urge you to discover for yourself 
the dead loss this trade-from-home spirit means to any 
community. 

“Fortunately, we are not great sufferers at the present 
time: Nevertheless, we have offenders. There is al- 
ways the possibility of a fresh outbreak. We believe, 
however, that our estimable women now joining ranks 
to do their duty here in Garthage, will be instrumental in 
bringing about a complete change. This is why we have 
pinned our faith to our new Community House when 
we hope to establish the fundamental rules by which our 
town will be governed. 

“If our reader’s interests are at home, there we will 
see him saving or spending his money. 


149 


BUSINESS ETHICS 

“Good sound sense and high judgment in what any 
reasonable man or woman exercise for personal benefit, 
are the qualities that make dependable citizens. If you 
can’t reason you are to be excused; if you are a blind fol- 
lower of a foolish leader, you are to be pitied. Whichever 
way you lean, that is the direction you must follow. If 
your money goes out; of town, some day it may be 

necessary that you follow it. It has escaped you forever.” 
***** 

An old story which has been printed again and again 
and copied by newspapers and magazines will bear re- 
peating in this paper also, because it explains only too 
plainly the facts of catalog buying as they affect the 
local community. Many of you may have read it and 
forgotten it. 

The cold figures which indicate the price of the goods 
sold by catalog and mail-order houses, as set forth in 
their advertisements, are not by any means the true 
price, as the “Mail-orderist” is careful not' to mention the 
“extra” cost incidental to placing the order and the 
delivery of the article ordered. The buyer is influenced 
by the low catalog price, rather than the delivery cost, 
the latter means of course, being the correct way of 
determining the cost of the article. 

To illustrate the point, we reproduce herewith a con- 
versation which recently took place in a Western town 
where a farmer entered the local store and inquired the 
price of an axe. The price of the axe was two dollars, 
the merchant said. 

“Great Scott,” declared the farmer, “I can get the 
same article from a Chicago Catalog House for one 
dollar and fifty cents.” 

“I can’t buy it for that price,” said the merchant, 
“but I will give it to you on the same terms as the mail- 
order house, just the same.” 


150 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


“Very well,” replied the farmer, “you can wrap it up 
and charge it to me, and when I settle in the fall, I will 
pay for it.” 

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said the dealer. “We are doing 
business on the same terms as you do business with the 
mail-order houses, no credit accounts, hand over the 
cash please.” 

The farmer handed over one dollar and a half. 

“Now,” said the merchant, “five cents for the money 
order, and two cents for postage.” 

“What ,” 

“Sure you must send a letter and a money order to 
the catalog house in order to get the axe, you know.” 

The farmer, although desiring to bolt, kept bravely 
to his agreement, and paid the seven cents. 

“Now the express charges, forty-five cents, if you 
please.” 

“Well, by gum,” he said, and gamely paid it with the 
remark; “Now that I have met all your demands, hand 
me over the axe.” 

“Hand you the axe? Why man where do you think 
you are? Just recollect, that you are in Colorado and 
I am located in Chicago; you will have to wait for about 
fifteen days for me to make the delivery,” and backing 
up his word with actions, he pocketed the money and 
put the axe back on the shelf, and smilingly turned to 
wait on the next customer. 

The farmer pondered and after he got through with 
his deductions he said: “That axe cost me just two 
dollars and three cents; that is three cents more than I 
could have bought it for in the first place, and I am 
deprived of its use for fifteen days besides, no more 
mail-order houses for me.” 

This farmer however had one advantage even in this 


BUSINESS ETHICS 151 

case? he had seen and handled the axe which he was 
buying. 

The incident related is one which the merchant and 
the customer both may read with profit, and if more of 
the merchants adopted the same tactics as did the 
Colorado merchant they would have fewer mail-order 
buyers among their customers. 

Coleen read Swearengen’s copy. He would use it, 
he believed, yet it seemed remarkably strange to him 
that neither article contained the solution. Both Zilki 
and Swearengen could describe the financial disaster 
produced by the mail-order houses; but neither writer 
had said one word to those who were losing trade, if 
not right in Carthage, at least where the news was sent; 
for the paper no longer was an infant edition that ap- 
peared weekly, for it long had been a daily, carrying 
into its columns that which the editor believed to be 
of general interest and service to his readers. 

He withheld statements which caused controversy 
unless he knew there was something worthy to bring 
before the eye of the public. He bitterly disliked old- 
fashioned editorial squabbles and at no time had ever 
indulged in them, believing them to be a poverty of 
expression, meaning nothing, doing nothing, getting 
no where at any time; though creating strife when 
editors fought with pens and frequently dined happily 
together the same day! 

Coleen believed in his message. 

Men there are who go forth to preach religion. Often 
they preach only what they have studied, whether they 
believe the doctrine or not; lawyers follow the mandates 
and precepts of some civil code. Their treatise is subject 
to any red tape which these lawyers care to adopt; 
but surgeons who go into an operating room have made 
a study of their work if they are successful surgeons. 


152 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


They know just where to put the knife. They know how 
to prolong life. And any public benefactor who does 
the public this service, of cutting out some poisonous 
growth in the business system must know what he is 
going to do. He can’t study it without being right in 
the midst of it. It stands no flimsy day dreams. Any 
man who has made a success of anything has his story to 
tell. All men have a story in their lives. To get the 
richest and best results we must go to the fountain- 
head — Experience. 

Coleen had been in the thick of it. It dated back 
to trouble he had with his father-in-law. That worthy 
editor followed the dictates of the mighty dollar. Proud, 
imperious, an aristocrat from birth, he had never known 
a single hard battle with anything that really meant 
dollars. With Coleen it had been just the reverse. He 
had gone through the flint. With his big, tender, gen- 
erous heart, he felt there ought to be some sort of 
equality for man. It had to come, too, in their work. 
Not all men could be diplomats, ministers, presidents; 
but those who were suppressed by environment, who 
always would be kept down unless something upheld 
principles for them, would be losers. And they were for 
years and years, yes, ages; but they are, indeed, coming 
into their own. Coleen was despised for his views, 
abused, and finally so bitterly tormented that the 
separation was brought about which drove him from 
his family. 

One thing after another came and went in his life. 
If such a thing could be, he meditated, that the survival 
of the fittest was possible, then, he believed, the fittest 
must be up, alert and at work. That was how he had 
ever figured so successfully when he went about any 
form of system that proved itself a double power in any 
business that he attempted to strengthen and make more 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


153 


lucrative. He made no guess that was not a proven 
theory. If he did, it was safe to say he saw the finish 
as he did the beginning. 

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away. 

Ridicule may be an evidence of wit or bitterness and 
may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but 
it is no test of reason, or truth, or manhood. 

Ridicule, beside being conscious and unconscious, may 
also be indirect as well as direct, negative as well as 
positive, paralyzing as well as amusing. 

Coleen wondered if the merchants appreciate their 
advantage. Would a friend of the merchant or dealer 
have sent his first order to a stranger who showed pic- 
tures instead of goods, who talked on paper, instead of 
face to face, who demanded pay in advance instead of 
allowing a more unlimited credit; would such an order 
ever have gone forth in their friend’s name had they al- 
ways improved their advantages? 

The answer to that solution was not a half mile from 
his office. It was the store, but one of the chain of 
stores, conducted by Mrs. Cansby. Alert, alive, up to 
the ears in work, restless, nervous, mannish, irritable at 
times, she demonstrated the fighting chance even a wo- 
man has in the competitive world. Everything fine and 
womanly had gone in the grist. Men secretly admired 
and despised her. Women regarded Mrs. Cansby as a 
freak. One instinctively looked from the lead pencil 
above her ear to her feet, expecting brogans. She was all 
business, nothing else. She had in her that spirit we 
don’t like in a woman, at least, not the trait for which 
we love her; for we prefer to work for those we love; 
but' she could shame most men in Garthage, as else 
where, with her business insight. For a woman to pur- 
chase a bit of pastureland, sell it, create a business center 
on it, establishing even her own bank — well, Coleen 


154 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


knew she had that fighting something in her that knew 
there was more than gristle on the bone she fought to 
get. 

There were local men who envied Cansby, the hus- 
band, who was getting a long head on himself, after 
constant grilling from the one who went first. His latent 
possibilities were, at least, bolstered up with valuable 
suggestions which he followed. But she never had the 
time to teach him that you don’t eat your dinner with the 
aid of a knife, so Cansby ate with his knife, and never 
noticed the difference while dining with men who had 
been spanked from infancy into the fork habit. 

Not seeing! 

That was exactly the idea. If a man wanted a plow 
he sent to a mail-order house for it. Possibly he had a 
long wait for it; again, maybe, it came in a few days. 
The hardware merchant had a better plow; but it was 
not shown in his place of business. His store was un- 
clean, helter-skelter. His windows displayed a thick 
freckle of last year’s fly specks; his electric light bulbs 
were the same, but he bought no new burners, so the 
lights were dim. The tinware and granite were dirty. 
He had no regular business hours. A customer often 
called him from a poolroom on the left or a tailor’s shop 
on the opposite side of the street. A young man some- 
times attended the store. If you wanted a gallon of 
dark green paint, that boy believed “they did not have 
it” and did not know “when they would ever get green 
paint.” 

The fossil! The mummy! The dead-centuries-ago 
numb-skull! Mrs. Cansby would have got you or any 
person that gallon of paint if she had to make it! And 
that is the catalog house plan; they will get it for you, 
no matter what you want; but not being there to see 
what is going to be your goods (for probably, they send 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


155 


your order a hundred miles from the office where the 
order is received), you are likely to get anything but 
what you really want. 

It did seem that a man or woman who bought that 
way was the same as a blind person who would go into 
a store and ask for a dollar’s worth of something, it 
made no difference what he got, so long as he gave the 
merchant the dollar! What blind idiocy is that which 
leads one to buy so carelessly? 

While one woman (granted she has money), will 
spend a half day, whole day or several days in making 
the purchase of a particular gown, yet there is another 
type, the ignorant one, who looks at the picture in a cata- 
log and makes her purchase in ten minutes or less. The 
stupidity of it means one of two things, or both. Either 
her local dealer had nothing she desired and made no 
attempt to get it for her, or the woman was lacking in 
better judgment as regards the expenditure of money, 
to say nothing of her pitiful ignorance in the selection 
of suitable wearing apparel. 

It isn’t wholly a question of dresses. It means every- 
thing, not an article, scarcely, that some person in your 
town does not want at some time. No small merchant 
can carry the enormous stock sold by the mail-order 
houses. They don’t do it themselves. Being in coopera- 
tion with manufacturing concerns, these concerns, ac- 
cepting their orders, can deceive you, and where have 
you any possible comeback? With an order written in 
Ohio, sent to Chicago or New York, the order filled, let 
us say in Pittsburgh, how is that for created system to 
help the buyer? 

Coleen swung back to his desk. He would tell them. 
He would tell the truth. It was not necessary to varnish 
one statement; but before attacking the mail-order con- 
cerns, he was ready to teach a different doctrine to those 


156 


BUSINESS ETHICS 


who, if they heard thunder, would wonder where the 
cat was that was purring so gently. But, and he drifted 
into a brown study, would it do them the least particle 
of good to arouse them to anything like business pride? 
The big whales could swim and flop and disport them- 
selves as playfully as they pleased in the billowy waves 
of the financial sea; but the little fish, the small nibblers, 
why they really, to Coleen’s way of thinking, were like- 
ly to drown! And why? It was simply because they 
knew of no public co-operation in a town or village which 
meant the collaboration of customer and home dealer. 

To throw everything into the hands of mail-order con- 
cerns has but one solution, their monopoly of a trade 
which for ages has been conducted by men who have 
been able to distribute it evenly and generously, giving 
each man his chance; but monopoly means everlasting 
destruction, and Coleen was a man who feared destruc- 
tion more on this side of the Great Divide, than beyond. 
He had a simple faith that wanted men to live happily 
with deserved gain, if men wanted it. He had known 
too many heartaches, too many disappointments, not to 
have a sort of tender feeling for all mankind. We call 
that the Christ in most men. That is exactly the defini- 
tion. But Coleen called it by a different name — “busi- 
ness ethics.’* 


CHAPTER XVII 

A DAY IN THE MILLS 

E VERY Egyptian was commanded by law annually to 
declare by what means he maintained himself; and 
if he omitted to do it, or gave no satisfactory account 
of his way of living, he was punishable with death. This 
Law Solon brought from Egypt to Athens, where it was 
inviolably observed as a most equitable regulation. 

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the num- 
ber of hands and minds usefully employed. To the com- 
munity, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and 
idleness is an atrophy. Whatever body or society wastes 
more than it acquires, must gradually decay, and every 
being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labor, takes 
away something from the public stock. 

Man must work. That is certain as the sun. But 
he may work grudgingly or he may work gratefully ; he 
may work as a man, or he may work as a machine. 
There is no work so rude that he may not exalt it; no 
work so impassive that he may not breathe a soul 
into it; no work so dull that he may not enliven 
it. The force, the mass of character, mind, heart or 
soul that a man can put into any work, is the most im- 
portant factor in that work. 

The highest excellence is seldom attained in more than 
one vocation. The roads leading to distinction in sepa- 
rate pursuits diverge, and the nearer we approach the 
one, the farther we recede from the other. Thus it is with 
the men of today, and thus it was with the men of Gar- 
thage, each was a specialist, each an expert in his line. 
No grander or more inspiring sight could be witnessed 


158 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


than a morning in Garthage, with its thousands and 
thousands of happy, satisfied workmen wending their 
way silently towards the vast and impressive mills and 
factories. 

***** 

I viewed the spectacle of morning from the hill-top 
with an emotion that an angel might share. The long, 
slender bars of cloud float, like fishes, in the sea of 
crimson light. The first streak of light, the earliest 
purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, 
and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, 
till at length the “glorious sun is seen, regent of the 
day” — this, city people and idlers never enjoy, for they 
never see it. 

I never thought that Adam had much the advantage 
of us from having seen the world while it was new. The 
manifestations of the power of God, like his mercies, 
are “new every morning” and fresh every moment. I 
know and love the morning. I love it fresh and sweet 
as it is — a daily new creation, breaking forth and call- 
ing all that have life and breath and being to a new adora- 
tion, new pleasures, and new gratitude. 

Coleen left the hill where he had viewed the awaken- 
ing town below him. His mental revery had traveled 
quickly to the immense works in the valley below, in- 
dustries of a large and sturdy growth, increasing daily 
and officially reported as being a success. 

Yet there had been one flaw, a big one. It was like 
the miniature leak in the great dyke. It would lead to 
destruction if not given prompt attention. 

So he went down into Garthage, ready to stop one 
bad proceeding, if possible. He went direct to one of 
the mills, the first built in Garthage, which had given 
work to hundreds of miners who filed silently out of the 
mines to find easier work, better pay, and a winning 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


159 


chance to earn their own homes. His workmen were 
all right. How glad they were of the opportunity to 
get work without moving. Their appreciation was not 
dormant. Zilki had done his part nobly and well in his 
forceful talks with the men, instilling into their minds 
the power that was exerted in their behalf. It was in- 
deed something to have a man come into their midst 
to take care of the minor as well as the big ventures. 

Coleen met the very men he wanted to see. He did 
not invite them to the Community House nor did he call 
for any special session. He met some of the men at the 
mill, telephoned for others and sent his own car for a 
stockholder who lived out of Garthage. In less than an 
hour the men were at the mill office. 

“1*11 come right to the point/’ he explained. “We are 
all in on the deal. Without a word, as to my own policy 
or principle, I have just this to say: We are preparing 
for a deal here. The orders are in ; we have the men to 
fill them. We need supplies and they are to be ordered. 
Now, what I want is this: That every order shall be filled 
right here in Garthage! We have something like $85,000 
to use on a beginning and we need not send fifteen cents 
out of here, if we don’t want to, and you all know it.” 

“What is the idea? To depend wholly on what we 
may be able to purchase here would delay — ” 

“Delay nothing!” roared Coleen. “That’s the spirit 
in too many towns that have an idea that anything 
bought at home is likely to cause delay. I say, if there 
is any likelihood of delay (but there is none), then get 
busy and leave that money here. We have the men, the 
ambition, the work and it is up to us, just this bunch 
here in this office to play this deal right at home. It 
means future orders from every concern at home. The 
largest stockholders of any concern that ever hope to 


160 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


see any growth in dividends can’t get it any other way 
than the one I plan.” 

“Oh, I thought you were a reformer.” The man 
laughed. “So, at bottom, is the fact that you are 
thinking too of a dividend?” 

“I might just as well think of the dividend as you to 
think of a rakeoff, if you get this through with Pittsburgh 
or some other concern. Certainly I expect my share of 
a dividend. I’m working for that, just the same as you, 
or you, or you. I am not in this business for my 
health; but every last one of you know I’m working for 
all Garthage. I have men working in these mills that 
I encouraged to come here. They see the way to bet- 
ter achievement. They want homes. When they get 
homes, they will be alive to every industry the town af- 
fords. Think what it will mean just to put this much 
back into our own coffers, for it is an example that will 
be followed. I’m very much in favor of taking care of 
little borrowers as well as big ones. 

“Most of these men are like wanderers. How benev- 
olent we are to them in our intentions, as benevolence 
is often bestowed, when we appear to them as helpers. 
It will mean a whole lot to us to begin this policy. 
I want it. I’ve worked for it from the time I came 
here. You know, every man of you, how I have saved 
the town from mail-order traffickers. And you know 
it has been the merchant’s salvation. I take no credit 
for merely agitating it ; but I am pleased that these men 
throughout Garthage and, in fact, over the entire East, 
are awake to what was threatening us and are fighting 
the foe. This is just an example of our own. Shall 
we or shall we not be consistent when it comes right 
home to us?” 

“You are right,” came a chorus of voices. 

“I think so, too,” replied Coleen. “Look the job right 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


161 


in the eye. Now is the time to get out your orders and 
if we can’t get everyone filled here in town, we will 
send for extra men, that’s all. We are not going to 
throw anything away. That is all I have to say right 
now. I don’t give the orders; but some of you men 
do. There isn’t to be any rakeoff in this business, 
nothing at all as a catch. We have the money to pay 
for good goods and that is what we must insist on hav- 
ing.” 

He picked up his hat and left the office. 

“What do you think of him?” laughed Parkinson. 

“I think he would make a first rate Frick or Carnegie 
if he didn’t have to butt up against a lot of dead tim- 
ber,” said Holmes in his quiet, easy going way. “That 
man’s as clean as fresh steel. I have tried him, tested 
him out, done a hundred things, merely to test him, and 
you can believe it or not, he is right there with the 
decency and the honesty to stand by his convictions. 
He’s right about this. We ought to keep it at home. 
He doesn’t believe in being weak on cash dividends any 
more than being weak or wobbly with rattle-brained 
Hunkies. If he had accepted all the offers made to 
him to buy stock in promising ventures he might have 
doubled his fortune; but he prefers to work along his 
ideas of business and I’m right with him on most of 
them.” 

“Don’t you think some of his remarks in the paper 
are unmerited abuse of the American privilege?” asked 
Parkinson. “I agree with him too on some of his pet 
theories; but I want to know just what he has done. 
I know what he says and what he prints. But, Mr. 
Holmes, I don’t know of anything, really, that Mr. Coleen 
has done for Garthage.” 

Holmes’ chair creaked under the sudden turn of the oc- 
cupant who wheeled suddenly around to see the speaker. 


162 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


A flash of anger darkened his face, then he gave him- 
self up to the satisfaction of a grunt. 

“Well, Mr. Parkinson, pardon me. I know you have 
not been here very long. I’ll tell you exactly what 
he has done. In the first place he came here and he 
went to live over in Garthage. He was nothing but a 
poor editor with an idea. He believed the mail-order 
traffic was destroying this section of the country. He 
fought it. He fought it in the paper, in the council, on 
the platform, everywhere that the opportunity presented 
itself. And, strange as it may seem, when he was doing 
a deed of kindness getting nothing for it, then, he met 
with opposition from the very start. He made many 
enemies and kept none. When men recognized his as- 
piring genius, they came to him and helped him out to 
the man. I don’t think we have any men here who 
are against him.” 

Holmes took a sharp look at Cansby who was making 
crosses and dots on a gray blotter lying on the table by 
his side. 

“Then,” continued Holmes, “he fought everything in 
this town to awaken civic pride. He shouldered both 
burdens. He came at an opportune time for old Garth- 
age was a dirty place and there was much sickness and 
death over there. There was a lull, then he interested 
men in bringing the mills to this end of Garthage. It 
was simply because this is where he had land and 
realizing that Garthage was a growing place and would 
eventually take it in anyhow, he worked from the middle 
outwards, which any of us would do if we had the op- 
portunity.” 

Several heads nodded. 

“He knew that practically all of Garthage over on 
the east side belongs to the mine owners. They have 
bought, leased and optioned a big territory over there; 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


163 


for there are rich holdings in that territory, as you know. 
We had to get out of the mining district if we wanted 
something besides mines. And it was all right to string 
it out as we have done. You see the result and it is 
perfectly systematic. 

“Aside from this, he used his influence to get that 
section of the railroad moved northward for the accom- 
modation of the people and he practically gave the station 
site to the company. He never stopped day or night 
until we got the trolley service and he got us our Com- 
munity House. I don’t know what it is that he hasn’t 
done. And you can’t, to save your life, find a flaw 
with it. He works right in the daylight, that every man 
can see. There were men in this town who actually let 
taxation wrap them up like mummies until he got here.” 
Hostilities ceased when he fought that openly. We have 
had a fairly square deal ever since. Now he has a 
man, Zilki (you know him, I guess), who is following 
in his tracks. He is doing with the foreigners just what 
Coleen is doing with the Americans. And he is some 
comer, believe me.” 

“And you mustn’t forget to mention,” said Cansby, 
“his fondness for Father Jarenski.” 

The men looked up quickly. They detected sarcasm 
in his voice. 

“Yes, and his love for Father Jarenski, the Polish 
priest, the old man who housed him, fed him and saved 
his life when some persons would have killed him and 
even tried it. But let me say right here,” and his voice 
lowered more than before, “he isn’t after anything. I 
know and I know it for a certainty, that when that old 
priest went among his men, trying to help them finan- 
cially through a bad strike here that he could only do so 
much. Who helped him? It was Coleen. He isn’t 
a Catholic; but he is the brother of man. No person 


164 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


knows it. Maybe I do wrong to tell it; but I know why 
he never forgets a kindness nor an injury either, for that 
matter. The place for a man of Coleen’s calibre is not 
in a city like this. His place is with the national af- 
fairs; and I would not be surprised to see him go that 
way. His work is receiving recognition throughout the 
whole of the United States. His editorials are quoted 
and many elaborations of his mail-order ideas are voiced 
through the American press.” 

“Thank you,” replied Parkinson. “I really did not 
know the man. I shall take greater interest in him in 
the future. I want to meet that kind of men and know 
them more intimately. I never meet a man of that type 
that I am not reminded of a fine old greyhound walking 
sedately among a pack of dirty curs, barking hounds and 
little pups, all biting, snarling and fighting to get a 
chance to thrash him, and he walks on actually uncon- 
scious of them. He doesn’t know they are near him.” 

Holmes laughed. Several men echoed the merry 
laughter. “That’s your man,” he answered. “As you 
have been here only a few months with the mill, I did 
not think you knew him when you asked me what 
Coleen has done. That isn’t all; but' I’ll leave some- 
thing for you to find out for yourself. He is a safe- 
deposit box of honest securities. Believe that!” 

While the men were talking, Coleen had gone into 
one of the newer mills. There was a man in there he 
wanted to see. The day was still early and many work- 
men were just arriving while others were busy. 

He glanced around him. Everything was in order. 
If a painstaking woman with her overworked broom had 
made the rounds of this huge place, following it up with 
soap, suds and woolen mop it could not be much cleaner. 

“Space,” he breathed. “Lots of space. Sunshine, 
air, light, cleanliness.” The vision of the eye leaped 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


165 


ahead to other immense departments. There was the 
clean rail of the inside railroad track, free from any 
junk, boxes or unnecessary material along the siding. 
No well kept grocery had its supplies in better order. 

The brisk October air swept through the open win- 
dows, and no man felt that he really was indoors on this 
ideal autumnal day. True, the great, flaming furnaces 
belched forth their fiery tongues of scorching heat. 
There were ways to avoid much of the discomfort caused 
by the same devices which are short of Dante’s descrip- 
tive Inferno in some cities. This, then, was system. 
How he loved the word. It meant the foundation of 
everything in business, just system. 

He looked at the giants of invention with the pride 
and curiosity of a boy. How many, oh, how many 
wizard minds had concentrated their tense ideas in 
bringing about just the simple plan of this big mill which 
was not simple at all in its immensity; yet seemingly 
so because of its order and system. He heard no loud- 
mouthed brawler cursing the men. He saw no iron mus- 
cled Hercules of strength striding among them, ready to 
kill the working spirit of a man with his roughness or 
meanness, his only idea of showing them he was their 
superior. Whose work? And he knew whose it was. 
None other than that of Mr. Parkinson who had collabor- 
ated with Father Jarenski and Francois Zilki, in bring- 
ing into this mill hundreds, yes thousands of men who, 
at times, had trudged under scorching sun or freezing 
wind to the mines, there to be buried from God’s sun- 
light day in and day out, some of them virtually living 
their lives underground ; then to — this cleanliness, order, 
a convenient hospital if an accident should occur. Every- 
thing was of greater importance, and everything showed 
that new trend of business ideas — no not ideas, ideals, 
to put the working man in a place of better, more cheer- 


166 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


ful and healthful environment. Thank God it is finding 
its sway even in the great prisons. Someday the close, 
foul-smelling, miserable places where men, women and 
little children live and die to earn the mere pittance, will 
appear to the world, America at least, like the clean, 
open, October aired mill of Garthage. And yet there 
were men in that town who wanted to send their orders 
to other factories ! ! This, too, when the mill was but one 
of the many that was coming to the front in the big 
industrial world. 

Coleen had not done this bit of work. Yet he was a 
cog in the wheel. The concentration of his high-power 
thinking had inspired others. His new methods were 
not original, they only came under the mighty influence 
of adoption. 

Many men have big ideas, thundering down the space 
halls of Time. But they are ideas which must be capital- 
ized and, being of so much importance, a single man can- 
not put them before the public without the necessary 
support to do so. If Coleen had not been editor of his 
paper, he, too, at the start, would have failed dismally. 
His paper was his advertising sheet of this big idea. He 
never said a thing that he did not believe or could not 
prove. He let no vigorous idea die. He trained every 
hope. 

Time and time again some person came to him with 
what he thought was an argument to sweep him off his 
feet just as did the farmer who asked “why he could not 
buy just where he pleased, this being an independent 
country?” 

Coleen listened to him. He came with a snarl, did 
the farmer. Sometimes it is difficult to straighten out 
snarls. 

“What you farmers want, what you fight for, what you 
send men to the legislature to obtain for you is a freedom 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


167 


that you don’t recognize when you get it. There isn’t 
one of you that doesn’t talk unity, centralization, and all 
of that; but when you actually get a central trading 
point near you and find yourself within hailing distance 
of it, what do you do but spoil every chance you have 
by dealing right over their heads. I know you do it. 
You do it right along. You toss a whole year’s harvest 
over their heads into the maw of some big Trust that 
don’t care a rap for you. You don’t do a thing to in- 
crease the wealth of the central point that you want to 
build; but you do scatter your forces and wonder why 
that section of your country is not a Klondyke in corn- 
fields, meadows and the like. Just as soon as men find 
a Klondyke, they go there. There never was an Eldor- 
ado on God’s green earth that did not have men rush- 
ing to it to get rich. But the trouble with a lot of you 
is the fact that you are not willing to make your Eldor- 
ado or your own Klondyke; you want somebody to find 
it for you; then go out and lead you to it. You all think 
you need a Napoleon to teach you how to get your dol- 
lars ; but a lot of you don’t realize that under your well 
worn jackets is Napoleonic strength and power that is 
afraid to act. Afraid is the very word. You are 
cowards, hangersback, leaners. If any of you see a 
man lifting you don’t wonder at his strength; you won- 
der if he is crazy. You all have ideas which you don’t 
utilize or materialize; but you send your stuff away and 
look at what you get in return. 

“I haven’t visited these farmers in the East' just to talk 
with them. Some of them are too busy to talk. But 
I see where a lot of them are looking forward to going 
to the West, when they can afford it, to a land that 
never has a real green lawn unless it is under eternal 
irrigation. Because California offers you another sort 
of real estate goodie; you have the eyes of a child that 


168 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


always sees distant fields are the greenest. I’ve known 
men to get out there on land that they dickered to get, 
that was so far from a railroad that it will be ages be- 
fore a steel rail is laid within hundreds of miles of the 
farms that some poor fellows own. Your Eldorado may 
be your own little Ohio, Pennsylvania or West Virginia 
farm. If there isn’t good picking here, no need to go 
West. You are not commanded to go West. You get 
increasing results — not by moving away, but by mov- 
ing a little livelier just where you are! A lot of you 
can adopt that with very little change.” 

Later he returned to the mill where again he 
met the men he had talked with. They had sent for 
him. The men, at least some, were hold-backs, kickers, 
blockaders, what every business man is going to meet 
at some time or other, and call the disturber a business 
nuisance. That nuisance too is the ostrich that buries 
his head in the sand to hide the calamity when it ap- 
proaches. He doesn’t want to see. His theory is that 
money will make money, almost regardless of the in- 
vestment. This is his shallow idea of what the law 
will do to support what is his ignorance. 

Thinking cannot be clear till it has had expression. 
We must write, or speak, or act our thoughts, or they 
will remain in a half torpid form. Our feelings must 
have expression, or they will be as clouds, which, till 
they descend in rain, will never bring up fruit or pro- 
duce a flower. So it is with all inward feelings; expres- 
sion gives them development. Thought is the blossom; 
language the opening bud; action the fruit behind it. 

Coleen had been thinking for some time on the sub- 
ject of establishing in the Garthage works a minimum 
wage scale. But thinking brought no results. So he 
called together the board of directors and placed his 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 169 

proposition squarely before them after returning to the 
mill office. 

He argued that the history of old Garthage was one of 
strife and bloodshed, the result of strikes. And strikes 
were the result of poverty. “Strikes,” he said, “were the 
most reckless and prodigal waster of property, life, of the 
happiness of families, and the prosperity of a community 
that the world has ever known. They are the destroyer 
of commerce, the hot-bed of vice, the nursery of intem- 
perance, the school of profaneness, the promoter of 
cruelty, the panderers of lust, the ruin of morality, the 
despiser of the decalogue, the grief of angels, the joy of 
devils! They have done more to make the world one 
vast Golgotha, than any other form of sin under which 
the earth has ever groaned and suffered, and over which 
angels ever weep.” 

As he warmed to the subject so near his heart he said, 
“Give me the money that has been spent in strike wars 
and I will purchase every foot of land in this vast State. 
I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of 
which kings and queens would be proud. I will build a 
school-house on every hillside and in every valley; I 
will build an academy in every town, and endow them 
and fill them with able professors; I will crown every 
hill with a place of worship, consecrated to the promul- 
gation of the Gospel of peaceful arbitration. I will 
support in every pulpit an able teacher of righteousness, 
so that on every Sabbath the chime on one hill should 
answer to the chime on another round the earth’s wide 
circumference; and the voice of prayer, and the song of 
praise, should ascend like a universal anthem to heaven.” 

“If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, 
and labor starves. Whatever there is of greatness in 
the United States, or indeed in any other country, is 
due to labor. The laborer is the author of all greatness 


170 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


and wealth. Without labor there would be no govern- 
ment, and no leading class, and nothing to preserve. 
Labor is one of the great elements of society — the great 
substantial interest on which we all stand. Not feudal 
service, or predial toil, or the irksome drudgery by one 
race of mankind subjected, on account of their faith or 
color, to another; but labor, intelligent, manly, indepen- 
dent, thinking and acting for itself, earning its own wages, 
accumulating those wages into capital, educating child- 
hood, maintaining worship, claiming the right of elective 
franchise, and helping to uphold the great fabric of 
State. 

“That is American labor, and all my sympathies are 
with it, and my voice and effort till I am dumb, will be 
for it. For from labor, health, and from health, con- 
tentment springs.” 

Coleen had warmed to his subject. “Take away the 
local center, the small town with the schools, the amuse- 
ments, the churches, the stores and the railroad station, 
and what have we left ? When we bring them together, 
we build up a stronger and better country. I can’t 
liken it to anything better than to say that every town 
must be a perfect part of the big business plan ; that no 
weakening should occur in any section any more than to 
admit of weak structural parts in a powerful engine which 
depends upon the small parts. 

“Right here is where we need a radical change to 
benefit and encourage the growth of the town. It is in 
reality a city. But we want to keep our men and the 
only way to do it is to furnish work and give the employes 
a part of the annual profit. I know it is generally the 
office force that gets that; but I’m speaking for every 
man.” 

“Just one minute, Mr. Coleen.” The speaker was 
Cansby. 


A DAY IN THE MILLS 


171 


“You speak of the profit-sharing plan. That amounts 
to a raise of salary per capita, and you know, if you 
stop to think for one serious moment, that every time 
you raise a man’s salary, it necessarily raises the price of 
every purchasable commodity on earth. You know that! 
It isn’t how much a man earns; but what he gets for 
his dollar that counts. If I can earn a dollar and get 
five times as much for it as I now pay five dollars for, 
how much better off am I ? ” 

“I like your argument, Mr. Cansby. It has been 
voiced all over the country and I don’t have to think 
about it at all. It is quite an old saw. Do you know 
the destruction it means to the nine hundred and ninety- 
nine little places on this earth that must pay the prices 
put up by the Big Trusts? They must have a wage to 
meet the prices which, you know, if you stop to consider 
it, the man of small salary must pay, just the same as the 
rich potentate. A miner can’t get a cheaper dinner of 
the same material than you put on your table. Not a 
mill worker in this town can save from his wages one- 
half the price of a home if he must live up to the times. If 
we can’t control the big industries, I don’t see why we 
can’t do the right thing by giving men a minimum wage. 
The real object of this mill is to sell steel at a profit. 
You know we do it. If, by giving a reasonable wage to 
our employers, we enlist the interest, skill, care and 
earnestness which each and every employe can give, 
won’t it win and hold the confidence of the men? 
Where it has been given a trial, they claim an increase of 
efficiency, punctuality, carefulness, regulations, loyalty, 
willingness, obedience to all rules and a co-operation that 
proves harmonious. When we furnish capital, equip- 
ment and management, the employes furnish intelligence, 
labor and skill. We are partners and we share alike.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THEN COMES A DAY 

O CTOBER dusk followed the scarlet and orange after- 
glow of a perfect day, and after a while there ap- 
peared as if by magic the countless sparks of light which 
always remind the dreamer of some infringement on the 
perfect harmony of the lighted stars. In the distance 
several mills sent up a flashing glare of light; sometimes 
a trailing car of burning slag crept down the invisible 
track, depositing the burning ash over a deep embank- 
ment, where much of it fell into the water, sending up a 
hissing sound and beautiful clouds of vapor that rose 
ghostlike and disappeared into ethereal nothingness along 
the horizon. 

While viewing the scene, a train pulled out from the 
station. Coleen watched it as it sped down the track 
and into the yawning mouth of the great stone tunnel, as 
black as one’s mental idea of the opening cavern of 
Future Despair. He watched the train with a feeling 
which no man can analyze. We leave him with his men- 
tal thoughts; for who of us can fathom them? Who can 
read the mind and heart of man and give its fullest de- 
lineations, emotions or fine sentiment? Too many of 
us take great and wrongful liberties when speaking of a 
man’s love affairs. Too often we say what he would not 
say and do what he would not do and make him act con- 
trary to the best or the worst in him. 

On that train was Natalie Neugart, the bride of 
Philip Mendenhall, a corporation lawyer of New York 
City. Coleen stood for several seconds gazing into space. 
Then he turned to his desk and called in Zilki. 


THEN COMES A DAY 


173 


“Frank, what have you done over in Garthage?” he 
asked. “I’ve lost out lately on some of the things I told 
you to do. I knew you were in the office, so I thought I’d 
have a talk with you. I’m anxious now to see something 
result from what has been undertaken.” 

Zilki sat down, thrust the fingers of his right hand 
through his brown curls that tantalizingly twisted back 
just where they were. 

“I’ll declare if I know what I have done. Now, 
candidly, Mr. Coleen, I have done wonders with some 
classes of people, generally the better class of foreigners 
and those who have ambition to go into business. I have 
some people whom (he threw up both hands and brought 
them down with a smacking emphasis on his knees), you 
can’t teach a bit better than I could teach a goose. I 
guess some of them 1 are goose nationality. Now, for 
one thing, they are illiterate. I can’t do a thing with 
them. I want to; but I guess it is a truth, you have 
to get a Guinea in the embryonic state if you want any- 
thing from him. I tried a little stunt over there by 
putting some families in houses that are more modern. 
You know the five Pasco houses? Well there is a bathtub 
in every house; and I went right with the families to 
each house ; told them how they could earn the 
houses; what we wanted; how we wanted it, and last 
week — no, it was week before last — I went over and I 
found Alcheski had two bushels of potatoes in his bath- 
tub; and over at Zorki’s I found coal in the bathtub, it 
was so easy his wife told me to scoop the coal out of one 
end with the round shovel! But Ranchi put a new one 
over. He had his bath full of water and filled with 
beer bottles to keep the beer cold! Beat that, if you can.” 

Coleen roared. “Why, Zilki, you old scout, you are 
getting along all right. At least they have discovered a 
use for the bathtubs; and you can get them to use them 


174 


THEN COMES A DAY 


for their rightful purpose in time. This is what Mrs. 
Coleen and Sonia call home missionary work.” 

“Then they ought to do it! Sonia just laughs when 
I tell her. She shakes her head and says: ‘Francois, 
my dear, teach them to learn their a, b, c’s, honor the 
flag and kiss the cross and you have done the work of 
fifty missionaries who go abroad to teach women in 
foreign countries it is wrong to wear beefbone trinkets, 
grass dresses and worship heathen idols.” The other day 
I went down in Carey Patch — my heavens, Mr. Coleen, 
that place needs to be double-policed. The miners live 
like cave dwellers. I saw little Johnnie Brugosh playing 
around in the yard with nothing on and it was cold as 
blixy. I told his mother she ought to be arrested and I 
made her promise to haul Johnnie in and clean him up. 
What did she do? She walked right out in the yard, 
caught the kid by the arm, stuck him in a barrel of rain- 
water and while he howled, kicked and swore in English 
and Polish at the same time, she wiped him off with 
her apron and put him down again ! ” 

“Nothing new to me, Frank. I’ve seen it all. It’s 
awful. It is simply terrible. Yes,” solemnly “it will 
take a great amount of labor over in that district to ac- 
complish anything worth while. Did you do anything 
with Letroski? I mean about' the store?” 

“I certainly did. I told him he could get the store 
for a mere song. He bought it and, honestly, it is a fine 
place for that part of town. It’s clean, the cleanest 
place over in Old Garthage, and he promised faithfully to 
keep up the standard. You know it’s pretty dishearten- 
ing to keep a first class store for that class of people who 
come in all muddy and unkempt. But he is managing it 
somehow. I talked with him about our modern ways, 
how very necessary it was to keep in touch with his 
customers, not to let anything get away, especially to 


THEN COMES A DAY 


175 


mail-order houses and he knows more about that than I’ll 
ever know. His only handicap is in not getting all the 
miners; for some of them must buy from the company 
stores or lose out.” 

“Did you explain if they do lose out that we can use 
them over here?” Coleen asked. 

“Yes, I explained everything; but you know some men 
know nothing else and want nothing else. All I can do 
is to get the children into school. That must be rigidly 
enforced and we can do nothing better than see that every 
child in this whole town goes to school. We must get 
them there, then make them realize just why we want 
them 1 taught. It won’t do to let one leave school under 
sixteen years of age. If we can hold them until that 
age — why they’ll be Americans; if not, they will be 
less than nothing. They persistently refuse to send their 
children to school if they can put them out to labor. It 
has doubtless been the lot of the parents and the grand- 
parents; but these children must go to school. Some are 
as bright as new coin from the mint; others will learn 
slowly. But while we are generating business and 
patriotic enthusiasm, we must look to the children and 
not the bathtubs. Letroski is a broad-minded man anx- 
ious to succeed. He isn’t like a lot of foreigners going 
into business over here with an over-developed imagina- 
tion that is merely an idea of getting rich by luck.” 

“By the way, before you leave, I want to ask you a 
question. Is Neugart a foreigner?” 

“No. I once asked that question myself. He is an 
American. He got the foreign idea of farming while 
living in California, Maybe Mr. Coleen, we can tell 
men and women how to run mills and make use of bath- 
tubs; but when it comes right down to scientific farm- 
ing, we are ignorant of the first requirement. You can 
give a foreigner a rock on a steep hillside, a handful of 


176 


THEN COMES A DAY 


clay and he can make a cabbage patch that will take the 
prize at the county fair. They can grow things from 
the stone pike to the window blinds in the house and 
always get a crop. I honestly do not know why, more 
of them do not strive to get little farms. There’s money 
in it for every crop. Even if not for commercial pur- 
poses, at least there is a good living on the farm, es- 
pecially an Ohio farm. In that, even the illiterate 
foreigner, shows a spark of scientific management which 
I suppose the good Lord implanted in him to keep him 
from starving.” 

The door opened and Father Jarenski came in. He 
carried a bouquet of late fall flowers, asters, sweet-scented 
fern, chrysanthemums and colored leaves. Only a ruse 
— nothing but a ruse. He, too, had watched the train 
leave the station, knowing at least, one passenger. As 
Zilki left the office, Father Jarenski took the vacated 
chair. He placed the flowers on the desk. 

“This is about the last one this year that Theresa can 
send you. Frost comes and steals my little children 
from me.” As he spoke his hand caressed the velvet 
petal of a dark red zinnia. “I talk with them, you know. 
I might live in this world for time and eternity, and never 
know there was a God, a Ruler, a Power, if it were not 
for the flowers. We can imitate them; but we can’t give 
them life. You might take the type downstairs, jumble 
it together for ten billion years; yet you couldn’t make 
a newspaper of them. It takes Something to system- 
atize.” 

“Yes, Father Jarenski, it does. It is a world that is 
all system in its formation and creation. The trouble 
lies in the poor management of everything so grand, 
powerful and scientific. You talk of God and I talk of 
God and I listen to every theological sermon the subject 
contains; but I see the godly man live in want, praying, 


THEN COMES A DAY 


177 


hoping and dying in despair; while some of the vultures 
succeed, have not a reverent thought and die as successful 
business men. But I’ve quit trying to analyze that. You 
may find God in your Bible and with the flowers; but the 
happiest day of my life is trying to imitate Christ’s ex- 
ample in the town of Garthage. 

“I used to think Christ was a young laboring man, 
physically weak, visionary and calm. I did not admire 
Him from the teaching I got. It confused my mind. I 
have learned who He was. I can think of Him as a 
Hercules among men, yet gentle as a mother. He tried 
to win the hearts of men for the true cause and without 
thought of personal gain. I have an idea He was as firm 
as He was gentle. Christ is an example for man. God 
made the flowers, true enough. I love that Power which 
is indefinite because of its greatness ; but I’m an admirer 
of Christ for what he is to this little old world of men. 
If I am a man, let me be a man unto man, though I lose 
every cause ! I am not original, so let me be an imitator 
of one who made a success of being loyal to the brother- 
hood of all mankind!” 

Father Jarenski listened quietly. At times he nodded 
his head and looked Coleen squarely in the eye. 

“I’m glad you told me this, John. I’m very glad. 
I know you are going home with a triumphant heart this 
night. If I could talk to such men as you, I’d do my 
part. But — well, why should I ask that my vineyard 
be easy to till? My labor is almost done, almost; and, 
John, I want to go home. I want to go back to Poland. 
I’m an old man now, too old for my Master’s work. I 
must lay it down. I’m like a little child again, looking 
for my cradle, only it will be my tomb. I want to go 
back to Poland! Why don’t I go? Dear boy, I haven’t 
the money. I can’t take from my beloved flock to satisfy 
this earthly craving. I’m selfish after all these years. 


178 


THEN COMES A DAY 


But it is mostly for Theresa. She wants to go while 
there is light. She wants to see — I know exactly what 
it is. I want to see it too. But she is going blind! I 
can see the old home, the green grass, the flowers. I 
often hear the curfew. I know she hears it too. I see 
it when she sits and dreams by the window.” 

“Well, if that is all that keeps you here, you'll go 
back to the green grass, gay flowers and curfew bells; 
for I’ll see that you do!” 

Coleen turned his back. He saw tears in the eyes of 
the old priest. He busied himself with the flowers, plac- 
ing them in a crystal bowl of water. When he turned 
to face the priest, his caller was silently leaving the 
room. The frail old form seemed almost buoyant. 
Such is the invigorating tonic of Hope. 

Hope! Just ordinary Hope. Ah, what would life 
be to one of us without it? 

Coleen left his office. He was singing a merry tune. 
It seemed that again he had been made useful. All 
men like to think that sometime or other, they help to 
answer some prayer. How unspeakably pitiful it is that 
too often the prayer is only the need of a little money, 
less, perhaps, than some men spend during a night of 
hilarious enjoyment, yet enough to almost save a soul! 
And it goes on and on and on, ever the same to bewilder 
the believing and perplex the best of us. And on we 
go to whatever task is assigned us — perhaps to fail — but, 
“Who dares assert your course is run? 

The game has only just begun. 

There’ll be another deal, my son, 

And after that, another one.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

DIPLOMATS 

W HEN Coleen returned home that night, he repeated 
almost word for word his conversation with the two 
men who had spent the evening with him. Both topics in- 
terested him. He was grieved to lose his estimable 
friend, Father Jarenski. Looking back over the years 
he had known the priest, he felt that he had imbibed 
much usefulness from his aged friend. 

In view of Father Jarenski’s many years’ service 
among the lowly, of the immense obstacles and dif- 
ficulties which he had to overcome, of the art and wisdom 
which he displayed, and the incalculable value of his 
work among foreigners, he stood as a figure among the 
men of Garthage. All men, all denominations, knew 
him as a friend of man, a saviour of souls, a great phil- 
osopher, a man of letters; and he might have been a 
great business man — but money he wanted for the needy. 
In the course of his life he worked his way through every 
social strata. A self made man, he was virtually un- 
assisted in his efforts to advance himself. True, the 
Church educated him. Privations were numerous enough 
at the time. His heart was with struggling humanity. 
He did not lead men — he managed them. 

He frequently left a man without replying to what 
the man had just said. Yet he did this in a way that 
left no ill feeling; for, likely, when next he saw him, he 
gave him a safe and sane reply; if not, then it was that 
attitude which wise men adopt to avoid trifling conver- 
sation. While he used to say to his people : “Drive your 
business; do not let it drive you,” he frequently left his 


180 


DIPLOMATS 


own affairs in a state of chaos. He could tolerate no 
uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation. But, none 
of this was what won Coleen. What held him to the 
the man was the priest’s innocent and just way of talk- 
ing to Coleen himself. There were times when they en- 
joyed solitude together and times when they enjoyed tell- 
ing tales and laughing. Naturally the retentive memory 
of the priest was a storehouse of valuable information. 
Better educated than any man in Garthage, he bore 
the unmistakable stamp, yet no man was ever made to 
feel inferior by comparison. He had played his big 
game and now he wanted rest. 

“I am glad, John,” said his wife, “that you can help 
him to go with his sister to Poland. I honestly believe, 
too, that he feels safe in leaving some of his unfinished 
work to Zilki. Of course his church will be able to pro- 
cure the best to take his place, but never, never another 
Father Jarenski!” 

Coleen agreed with her in part. Then he went to 
bed. Over and over again he thrashed through his mind 
the working plan at the mills. Everything was rising 
as if on wing. He felt the exultation of a man who 
works for something besides mere gain. It was not 
that he alone had caused the marvelous change; though, 
in a sense, he wondered if certain plans would have been 
as successful without his personal effort. 

Some men were fighting against the minimum wage. 
Nine-tenths were in favor of it. Said one party: “What, 
advance the foreigner and just as soon as he becomes 
a boss, he hires only his own countrymen, and out goes 
the American!” In some localities this had been done. 
In fact it is not an uncommon thing today. But in the 
business world, with its immense holdings, its enormous 
business interests, doesn’t it look just a whole lot selfish 
for even a true blooded American to want it all? Why 


DIPLOMATS 181 

not encourage the foreigner here, give him an equal 
chance, provided he becomes an American? 

Coleen was thinking the same thing. Quick wits 
travel fast, they say. His traveled over the town of 
Garthage. He saw its growth. He knew where to find 
success and failure. His idea of success was along the 
lines of business. But to think of many places where 
the stores showed no business enterprise, as he had 
found them when first coming to Garthage was, after all, 
the snag that trips so many thousands a year. 

Why couldn’t men see this for themselves? There 
were stores in Ohio, as elsewhere, where the windows 
were ever the same. No person changed the ware in 
them, much less cleaned them. There was not a dusted 
article in the place. There was never a clerk who loved 
his job or wanted to remain where he was. Often there 
was the keenest friction between manager and clerks. 
Why not a complete understanding, a business training 
to further every purpose? Only that day Coleen had 
watched a new accountant over at the railway station. 
A man had left. It being the time to audit the books, 
it was necessary that the chief clerk get an assistant. 
This assistant came, a tall, lank, anemic boy. He was 
sadly crippled in one limb, dragging his almost useless 
left foot back of him. Yet, at every sound outside the 
office, he dragged himself to the window to see what was 
going on outside! Coleen knew the boy. He knew 
how poor were his parents and the tussle they had to 
keep a large family. He walked over to the new office 
assistant and said: 

“Son, I want to give you a little bit of advice. I see 
you are here at this new job and while it does not pay a 
very big salary, nevertheless, I take it for granted that 
you, owing to your sad affliction, are looking for some- 
thing along this line of work, mental and not physical?” 


182 


DIPLOMATS 


“Well, I have it, haven’t I?” answered the boy, rather 
sarcastically. 

“Yes, you have it ; but I wouldn’t want your chance 
of holding it, if you mean to stay here and run to the 
window every time a car passes or a dog barks. Boy, 
I have as much interest in you as has your own father. 
I see your handicap. If there is anything in you* do 
your level best. I’m not hiring you; but I can be one 
who can fire you and do it without batting an eye. I 
want you to keep this job, for it has something else com- 
ing. What can you get any easier for this cold winter? 
You are mad. I want you to get mad if it helps you. 
But my dear boy, this first job is usually a turning point 
in a fellow’s life, and I do like to see a fellow do the 
best he can. We all fail. I have failed so many times 
that I couldn’t count them, but I climbed up every 
time.” 

The boy turned his back without answering. He re- 
sented the best advice in the world. Coleen wondered 
how long he would last! 

Then swiftly on the heels of this thought, not very 
pleasant, was what he had seen in a large department 
store. It was the harmony in the imported lace depart- 
ment. True, there were domestic laces and embroideries ; 
but it was one department that made the best showing 
every month. It was solved in no time, the manager, a 
foreigner too, gained the friendship of every young lady 
in his employ. He had lived in a foreign mart where 
he knew everything from the fragile thread to the mas- 
sive looms. He knew linens from muslins. Educated, 
refined, genteel, he went right to the depths of his trade. 
No woman feared his abuse; no woman shirked her duty. 
If there was a mistake, no person helped correct it more 
quickly than did the manager. There was an educa- 
tional foundation or basis for everything each girl did. 


DIPLOMATS 


183 


If she could not grasp the idea, she was taken from that 
department and put where she could do the most good. 
Every woman under his management dressed handsomely 
without great expense. It was an art. So essential was 
it for his department that each clerk had to strive for 
proficiency as well as efficiency and “measure up.” 

What more was needed right there for success? It 
was that stronghold which many business men never con- 
ceive or, if they do, pass it aside as one of the trivial 
affairs of no consequence, therefore of no financial 
benefit. 

“A mistake,” thought Coleen. “Every department 
head should be an executive and an expert. If not that, 
he must study it before hoping to do his best by any 
concern using his services.” 

As Coleen heard the clock strike the midnight hour, 
he dismissed his thoughts. 

They that won’t be counseled can’t be helped. 

The following day Coleen recalled his vagrant thoughts 
of the night before. Somehow or other our best thoughts 
come to camp with us at night, then depart with the dawn- 
ing day. The rush of work is like a strong wind whirl- 
ing autumn leaves across a wide expanse, one reason why 
most writers have always advised a person to capture his 
thought while it was close of capture; for there is 
nothing so elusive as a golden idea when you need it 
the most. 

So the next day, early, Coleen was at his desk. He 
used a typewriter; but in a manner which honors no 
noble institution that makes the machinery. He wrote 
with the rapid fire style that he adopted when a cub 
reporter. You can break a man of his vices quicker 
than the slovenly typewriting habit. But he produced 
his ideas and they made the right editorial. 


184 


DIPLOMATS 


One of his constant readers was young Weatherby, 
an assistant editor and a writer of keen originality. He 
was too young and boyish to be analytical, though his 
keen sense of justice and his Southern heart (that always 
warmed quickly to every good fellowship feeling) made 
him trustworthy and too useful to discourage when, at 
times, he slipped a cog. 

He read several of the business notes that were, in 
reality, editorial squibs,* but not printed on the editorial 
page. They were office gleanings and every member 
of the staff contributed to the pot-pourri. It was Weath- 
erby who usually contributed the little items — “He who 
works or plays — without thinking, is wondering when 
his luck will change, or, when forming your own business 
ideals, don’t size them up with a magnifying glass.” 
Sometimes it was, “Hold on to your customer with bull- 
dog tenacity.” He was not much older than the young 
man whose chief occupation was that of looking from 
the office window; yet he had little or no use for a 
window at all, as most of his work was done under the 
artificial light above his desk. 

“Rounding them up again, Mr. Coleen,” he remarked, 
pointing at the editor’s latest editorial. “They will 
get away, won’t they? I remember once when I was 
working down South, of going into a store to be fitted 
with a pair of shoes. I always wanted a certain shoe 
if I could get it and none suited me until I got that 
or something I liked equally well. The clerk was 
getting out everything imaginable when I found the 
shoe, put it on, found it satisfactory and paid my 
price. As he handed me my purchase, he said: ‘Will 
you kindly give me your name and address?’ Naturally 
I asked why he wanted it and he said: ‘So we can 
notify you when we have something in your number 
and style that might please you.’ Now I left my name 


DIPLOMATS 


185 


and never expected to go into that shop again, for 
I contemplated leaving the city; but they did write 
me a regular two-cent letter; it was forwarded to me, 
and just because I could not get what I wanted where 
I went, I sent my order to the firm and got my shoes. 
You know that is business, isn’t it?” 

“At any rate it was a free trial,” answered Coleen, 
“and I see they kept pretty close to the trade in just 
that way. By the way, Weatherby, what did Zilki 
give the men last night over at the Lodge? I wanted 
to get there; but I saw him here for a while, then 
I had a caller and could not go. Get any notes?” 

“A few.” He took his favorite note-book, some 
creased scratch paper from his pocket, turned it over, 
upside down, then crosswise. “Here she is,” he com- 
mented; “have it sort of mixed up with that shooting 
affair down at the Dump.” 

“What’s the idea?” Coleen called eagerly. He took 
great interest in Zilki’s work. 

“He talked with them upon the sensible idea of 
working for a salary. And you know he does not 
often advise a man to travel the alley when there is 
a clean streetway. He said that the United States 
subsists on pay checks and on Nature’s chief industry, 
farming. In one place he said that salaries are in- 
creasing, which is true in the manufacturing districts. 
Salaried employees are steadily increasing and working 
conditions have improved. Just such things as that, 
you know, broad and sensible. He cited where every 
fellow at sometime or other wanted to be his own boss 
and worked for that goal. Well, you know he didn’t 
have to have any great stretch of the imagination to 
prove that the false idea of superior independence isn’t 
in ownership, but salary. He wasn’t afraid to speak of 
the very small business ventures that get into a 


186 


DIPLOMATS 


precarious condition while ever expanding salaries offer 
young ambition a fairer and better chance. One item 
here says ‘A large part of the real prosperity of the 
United States is found along the upper range of the pay 
roll.’ Shall I use it?” 

“Use it? Why, of course use it. That is the kernel 
of all our work. It is to interest the men in having a 
pay roll and working harmoniously for unity of success. 
I think we can do more with the miners in time; but 
so many of them prefer underground work that their 
problem, so far, is untouched; and we don’t need them 
anyhow. I don’t like to undertake anything among 
the Coal Company’s people, only to relieve a tension 
if they want it relieved. And just as sure as you live, 
another strike is coming. I have it on pretty good 
authority that they are going to board up the mines 
again. Honestly, that is a frightful condition. I’m 
much like Father Jarenski who said last night that 
obviously there is no solution for the problem of 
unemployment except by putting idle hands to work. 
This thing of pensioning idle men has some sort of 
compensation — maybe it is better than turning them 
loose on the bread line or out to the soup houses; but 
if there is a way to help them, I don’t think we infringe 
on any man’s right to help a man to it. Even little 
old Garthage can absorb a great quantity of idle. labor 
this winter and get us in line for the work we contem- 
plate. The great trouble with these problems is the 
fact that either they are only half done or not done at 
all, and they fade away. Why it’s murder to a city’s 
trade not to keep men at work or find work for them. 
A man who loses his head and finds his heart in these 
strikes or where there is a cessation of labor, can’t win 
out. How can he? Nine times out of ten a man who 
is not working, gets into debt; takes flight. It is the 


DIPLOMATS 


187 


usual thing wherever you find the working class. It 
isn’t that they don’t want to pay in most cases, for 
only too often they can’t, and that settles it and the 
store keeper or merchant loses, who carries him through 
the strike or while he has only half work. I’ll tell you 
what’s wrong, Weatherby, it is the fact that every 
blessed one of us has the idea that America is a great 
grab bag and we are going to get something for nothing. 
You can’t talk preventable waste to people who don’t 
want anything on God’s earth but a pound of bologna, 
a dime’s worth of crackers and a bottle of polinki. I’d 
as soon try to teach a tomtit as some of the riffraff 
we have in this place; but we so often make mistakes 
to the contrary, that I try it out on each, and, boy, 
it would surprise you exceedingly if you knew the 
converts we get. Some people call it one thing and 
some another, but it seems like promising economy so 
far, though even Holmes told me at first that my 
pattern was one of useless extravagance. But I have 
some binding pledges among the foreigners, and Zilki 
heads the list. His head is shaping.” 

Weatherby didn’t hear a word that was said about 
the grab bag. He was dreaming his life away at the 
moment, wondering if he would receive a letter from a 
certain girl down below the Dixy line. 

He found it on his desk. Ten minutes later he was 
more than ready for the work at hand. 


CHAPTER XX 

THE PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 

C OLEEN had never forsaken his ideals. His ideals 
were dreams; but not the vagrant thoughts that 
wander far, ever returning with empty hands. Contrary 
to this, his dreams were desires and wishes. They came 
back with a wealth of originality and, alas, often enough 
a great burden. 

On this day, even a busy one in his office, he was 
wondering just which subject to take up for his editorial 
lead. The fresh thoughts were not crowding him. He 
wanted something different. 

In his office he had a glass-topped table. Beneath 
the glass were hundreds of clippings, as neatly arranged 
as the pages of a scrap book. It was, indeed, a scrap 
table, and many persons found it interesting to sit at 
this table and read the clippings. He frequently removed 
a sentiment, adding a fresh one. But there was one 
that ever remained. He liked it. Sometimes he felt 
that he, instead of Robert Blanchford, had written it. 
How true it was of his own investigation of places 
where human life paid the toll for the luxuries of the 
rich. How true every word of it described conditions 
that he had investigated in the great sweat shops. Was 
it inefficiency, greed, ignorance or just the outcome of 
Nature that cannot attend to everything? Yet that 
isn’t nature, he knew. He walked over to his table, 
sat down and read the short squib. 

“I’d rather die on the high road under the open 
blue. I’d rather starve to death in the sweet air, or 
drown in the brave salt sea, or have one fierce glad 


PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 189 


hour of battle, and then a bullet, than lead the life of 
a brute in a stinking hell, and gasp out my broken 
breath at last on a pauper’s pallet.” 

There was something there for an argument; but he 
wanted no argument. He had, in a very large sense, 
been able to bring about a considerable change in the 
working condition of men. At times he talked with men 
who opposed many splendid opportunities for an ad- 
vancement, holding on to false ideas of their lodge rights. 
When strikes occurred, their dues were increased. The 
laboring class fell among themselves in the hardest sort of 
competition. It wasn’t to start anything for controversy, 
quite the reverse, that he wondered just what step to 
take. He was not a socialist in any sense of the word. 
He never wanted to be one. If ever a man’s hopes and 
ambitions, to say nothing of his labor, were neutral, 
he felt that his were. He attributed much of the work, 
worry and failure of men to ignorance, where it rightly 
lays. But he could not help believing that the comforts 
and liberties, to say nothing of the great properties, 
are laid at the feet of a small number of proprietors, 
who neither toil nor spin. Somehow or other there 
rushed through his mind the rejoicing and elaboration 
of the elaborate tomfoolery of seating a President who, 
in a few years, is snatched from his throne and is often 
the jest of the nation if not the whole world. There 
was something in Tony’s birthday party that took on 
the airs of a Yankee circus and a circus reminded him 
a little of the coronation of a king; and, assuredly, the 
coronation of a king was as perplexing and saddening 
as a run-down American ballet. Socialists, Democrats, 
Republicans, all for the same thing, not the people; 
and the people going mad to support the ruler who — 
but you know! So did Coleen. His heart softened 


190 PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 


as he thought of the men who wanted work, homes, 
children, freedom, life. 

“Of what are the thoughts this day?” 

It was Holmes. 

“Well, bless your life, I’m glad to see you. Thoughts? 
I’m glad you came in. I’m in fairyland, I guess. I 
was just thinking about kings and potentates, kids’ 
parties and of people who have solved the secret of the 
stars and can’t live decently and — I was just thinking.” 

“A dangerous thing for a man of your age. Better 
take a little ride with me today and let the shop go. 
You look too serious. As if you had been up all night. 
Worried?” 

“Worried?” Coleen shook his head. 

The telephone rang and he answered it. 

“What’s that? What? When? Oh, pshaw, pshawl 
Is it possible? Sure.” 

He swung away from the telephone. “Two dagos 
held up the paymaster coming to town, killed him 
and shot the man with him — over at the turn of the 
road.' Let’s take Zilki. Where is that man? — What 
a shame! What a shame! Yes, maybe it is a false re- 
port. That’s a lonely place ; could do it quick as a wink. 
Carried the whole pay. And Jamison hasn’t had the job 
three months.” 

When he was again at his desk, the ugly facts were 
buzzing through his brain. The men had made their es- 
cape all right; but how far could they go? Jamison was 
dead. The money being in a large iron box, the total 
weight being ninety pounds, of course, the two men could 
not carry it unless they had some convenient conveyance 
to carry it away. Even then, their chance of escape was 
not likely. Why did these foreigners take such great 
and terrible chances? They certainly knew the result. 
It was a stigma of dishonor on every man of the same 


PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 191 


nationality who was trying to live honorably. Indeed 
Coleen realized more than ever the unenviable position 
occupied by Father Jarenski whose motto of strife was 
to stop an insurrection in the seething ; but who can stop 
the plotting murderer or any man of low cunning and 
deviltry? And then he knew that no man can stop it. 
We can judge and punish. But, after all its horrors 
and terrible examples, it leaves the innocent to suffer. 
His heart turned kindly to the thought of thousands 
of noble mill men who at that moment were in the 
great mills, laboring honestly for their daily bread. How 
wrong, how unjust, how unmercifully unkind to judge 
a whole nation by the few evil doers who come here 
and leave the everlasting scar of disgrace upon the fair 
face of a country that has welcomed them, only to 
discover that it is like taking a viper to its bosom. 

Solemnly came that thought, “Judge not!” 

He was glad he liked men, all men. After all it 
was only the bad that men did that he hated; and he 
was not wavering in his determination to do the best 
that could be done for the people of Garthage. He now 
realized his true position in Garthage. It was not as the 
editor, the business man, or the organizer. It was only 
too evident that Garthage accepted him as their true 
philosopher. And the philosophy he adopted was in acts 
and deeds, not editorials. And men looked to him as 
we look to our president and our rulers. Back he got 
to his beginning. The circle was complete. There 
must be rulers. There must be Presidents, kings and 
men in power. There ever has been; there ever will 
be. If people made of it a pageant and a gaudy show 
— well — let them. Without the leader, where would 
the people go and what would they do? But he 
believed in everything but tyrannical monarchy over the 
man who toils. * 


192 PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 

And, if you will recall it, wasn’t that Christ’s teaching 
too? 

Possibly if John Coleen had never been a reporter, 
he might have escaped his true position. But he had 
gone where many reporters had refused to go. There 
were times when he lost his identity in the crowd. Pie 
braved the confinement of a prison to learn the living 
conditions of its wretched inmates; he donned ragged 
clothes to seek a position of trust to find that ragged 
clothes, though covering an honest heart, are mistaken 
for everything but what they indicate. He had stood 
in the bread line at the Salvation Army with men who 
were weak with hunger; and were first treated to a 
religious feast before receiving needful food. Into the 
terrible sweat shops he had gone and from them to 
charitable institutions. Many, indeed, were the great 
factories where there was no admittance. Then he got a 
job at the place and knew why he was' refused as a 
visitor! He had a good chance to become a pessimist. 
He was not one. He knew every political “scrap.” 
He knew who mismanages these big affairs and why 
they are mismanaged. His eager search was not 
exhausted. That was why a clean man, though poor 
as the beggar that sat at the King’s gate, received his 
best thoughts. It was — the man! 

Everything reverted to Business. It was the biggest 
plan of life. That being the case, why didn’t every 
man who has his own business, study it from the 
foundation to the pinnacle? Why not have unity of 
force with some of the employees? Not to have the 
whole business plan on a fundamental basis to be 
wisely governed, was like trying to run a locomotive 
without fire. Naturally to secure success in business, 
one must have men and women who will create suc- 
cess. And you can not get them by brow-beating 


PHILOSOPHER AMONG HIS PAPERS 193 


them, starving them, keeping them in menial line. If 
monarchs will rule; so will the people in their way. 
Often their way isn’t always the best; for they are too 
busy with manual labor to study it scientifically. They 
accept an agitator as their ruler, because he likes to 
stir things up, and generally succeeds; but where does 
it lead them? 

How grateful he felt that, while being an agitator, 
he did it for the benefit of manager and worker. He 
had changed the living condition of almost every 
working man’s home in Garthage. When first he went 
to live there, he found people living in squallid dens, 
where there could be no health and no hope, only 
dogged discontent at their impoverished lives and futile 
effort at wealth as they saw it possessed by others. 
No doubt the wretches who murdered the paymaster 
had lived no better. Ignorance, cunning, deviltry, 
nothing healthy, nothing clean. Probably it went back 
generations to foreign parentage that lived and bred in 
filth. What more can you expect from the vile and 
dirty hovels where men, women and children live in 
the same room, and the feeble birth cry is heard as 
often in such surroundings as the benediction in Christ’s 
Church ! 

Oh, America, America, with your temples of knowl- 
edge, your public libraries, your charitable institutions, 
your fine parks and public schools — you have hidden 
scars on your fair acres that hold as great torment as 
the Hades you have never known, but fear. 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE MASTER HOLD 

T HE knowledge that carries men through business is 
learned. There is in most business men the natural 
intuition because men learn from practical work, while 
picking up wholesome ideas by mingling with business 
men and also by reading. A good and purposeful trade 
journal, edited by worth while men, is in itself an 
advisory council that helps a man when often he needs 
the right spur. 

Coleen in his time had seen sluggish office forces 
snapped up and pushed into wide-awake business men. 
He instinctively knew them. There was Zilki, young 
Weatherby, Holmes, several school boys new to the 
field. He had watched “little fellows” with live brains 
get in as directors of gigantic wholesale concerns. They 
were little only in the sense of inexperience; yet so 
astonishingly full of business that they had to get work 
to give vent to their pent up originality. This was one 
reason why he liked the live boy editor. Weatherby 
instinctively knew the why and the how of the problems 
set him by his master, Coleen. Too, he would never 
be a man limited to one field of work. He would, in 
time, probably leave the newspaper work, or enlarge 
his plans while doing both. 

The inspiring success of men in Garthage was due 
to the attention it received. There was nothing else 
to promote interest. They talked success; they created 
success; they made you believe in success. 

The problems that business men had to face were 
the complicated problems that all business men must 


THE MASTER HOLD 


195 


meet. It was never safe to believe they were free from 
mail-order traffic; for Garthage was growing, and grow- 
ing so rapidly now, with the mills and factories on the 
increase in numbers, offering best wages and good 
homes, that, at times, it looked to promoters as though 
they would be crowded for room. It was all they 
could do to prepare for the new comers; and, with their 
coming, along came their unenlightened ways of buying. 
Since Garthage wanted to live on its own fatness, it 
was the eternal brushing about and stirring up of 
interest that was as essential as the artery of one’s good 
right arm. 

Men studied finance, economics, organization, selling, 
accounting. They discussed the matter with their help 
from all standpoints. Sooner or later YOU will meet the 
same questions. Is it possible you can answer them? 

Not many years ago a young man was given a 
position in an eastern concern where “social influence” 
got him the position. The general manager, wise to that 
type, was the one man who had discouraged his coming. 
When the man arrived at the office, his father came 
with him. The general manager took the two men, 
father and son, into his private office. He then sat 
down to question the fresh recruit. The father watched 
eagerly for the replies, hoping the boy had the basic 
principles to give intelligent answers. The questions 
were hard ones. Not many men could answer them. 
They were complicated. 

Not one did he answer as it is covered in business 
form; but when he replied to each and every question 
to the best of his ability, the general manager reached 
over, took his hand and said : “You have been thinking 
of a job like this. You have practical ideas. I want 
you.” 

Today that young man, not so many years older, has 


196 


THE MASTER HOLD 


the presidency of one of our largest wholesale concerns 
in the United States. Some men say: “He got the 
job through the influence of powerful friends.” He did. 
But the powerful friends knew just what they were 
backing when they sent him out. 

Coleen was so eager for all men to learn business 
problems, even when not in business for themselves, that 
he organized several different business branches at the 
Community House. Here were mere boys, high school 
youths, tackling the problems that often confront and 
trip a man in later years. Everyone was interested in 
the young fellows and many were the entertainments 
given to encourage them to success. In a surprisingly 
short time others joined; then Council went with them 
through the trade channels. The clever part of it lay 
in the fact that it all was arranged with the view of 
entertaining all persons, men, women and children. It 
was, in a way, a sort of elaboration on our old-fashioned 
country school lyceum. 

So Garthage as a business center stood with head and 
shoulders above the crowd. She had to grow and once 
she started to grow in the right direction, she made 
rapid strides. There were many men and women who 
were indifferent to Garthage’s one strong-hold — Pull 
for Garthage — but they soon learned (these idlers and 
triflers), that, inasmuch as they gave nothing, they 
received nothing. It is the man who shows the business 
spirit that gains it and even attracts it magnetically. 
You never yet have found a laggard at the head of 
any company capitalized in the millions or the hundreds 
of thousands. They never arrive! But the ones who 
do — their greatness is their knowledge of business 
fundamentals. 

One reason why Coleen had the master hold was due 
to his faith in young humanity. He was so eager to 


THE MASTER HOLD 


197 


see boys arrive at a place in life where wholesome 
occupation would save them from idle dissipation. Time 
and time again he had found very young men sitting 
idly around the station. Sometimes, as I have heard him 
tell it, he would say: “There I saw a boy, his eyes 
fixed vacantly on space, just sitting there and breathing 
and breathing and breathing! ” 

He wanted those boys with vacant stares when he 
found them ready with the light of hope in their eyes 
and a willingness to do — just something. He knew so 
well how many, many thousands of boys there are who 
sit in little towns and — breathe and breathe and breathe. 
Why? Because there is no occupation. They see noth- 
ing to inspire them to work, so they grow dull and listless 
and many still remain that way. It occurs so often in 
mail-order towns that we sometimes wonder if, in time, 
this army of boys without a chance, will look back and 
hate the ones who permitted the warfare against them. 

Someone will say: “There was John So and So 
who left a little town and today he is president of a 
large New York bank!” But where one John goes up 
and up and above the rest, there are thousands that fail. 

It is said that no town is alive that is passed up by 
the traveling salesman. So young people leave sluggish 
towns and only the Lord knows where they go. If 
they remain in the town that has received its death 
blow in business, ambition is replaced by laziness, 
shiftlessness, and general disinclination to exert any 
energy or effort which would tend toward progressive- 
ness. 

The really ambitious people, young men and women 
who wish to accomplish something in life, leave the 
sluggish town and take up their abode where energy and 
effort are rewarded by advancement. Frequently, this 
success is bought at the expense of the nerves and the 


198 


THE MASTER HOLD 


very souls of the young. This condition being the 
result of congested centers of population. 

These are, indeed, some of the charges to be brought 
against the problematical profits found in the catalog of 
the mail-order houses, and they are not financial losses, 
but moral losses as well. Were it possible to gather 
all the facts in regard to any small town which suffers 
from the catalog trading abuses, the loss of dollars 
and cents could be largely estimated; but the social 
and moral loss could never be measured or calculated! 

This was why the master hand meant to keep the 
boys at home. 

Since the crusade against mail-order houses, there 
were some merchants who went so far as to withhold 
credit and favors from all mail-order patrons. They did 
not do it offensively ; but they stated their reasons, and, 
likely, a barbed wire thrust was felt, and while it took 
a good bit of grit to do this, for it meant a loss, yet 
they always gained the patron. In this case competition 
was helpful. 

Someone has rightfully said “that the only thing in 
this world that a man needs in a hurry, if he must buy 
it, is a sandwich.” This wouldn’t go well with Wall 
Street, the brokers or the anxious southern real estate 
men; but the idea is this, that practically every com- 
modity purchased by man can be selected carefully 
and there really is no great rush. You even get three 
days to order your coffin. You don’t have to worry 
because your local dealer does not have the plow you 
want or the automobile or the machine oil can. He 
can get them as quickly, if not more so than you can 
do it yourself. You have him standing between you 
and the purchase. He is, in slang phrase, the willing 
goat. It’s all as simple as the first rudiments of arith- 
metic; but that queer old pride that thrives best in 


THE MASTER HOLD 


199 


the brain of the pride-vain man or woman is eternally 
on the lookout for something new or different and is 
perfectly willing to take chances of getting it, just to 
be — different. Many have paid the exorbitant prices. A 
good, clean, paying peach orchard in Ohio would look 
like the Garden of Eden beside the white-fire burned 
orange grove of Florida, that was “exchanged, plus a few 
thousands” by the owner of the peach orchard who 
liked the looks of the sunset on the catalog. Too many 
of us get sunstruck by looking at catalogs! 

* * * * * 

This was why Coleen’s work was a Voice asking the 
community to rise up in one body and put a stop to the 
practice, and it pleased him when they obeyed, and dis- 
mayed him when they did not; for he despised stupidity. 

Local development rested so powerfully on extermin- 
ating the evil that again he agitated public meetings with 
all the best speakers and musicians around to lend local 
color and harmony to the uplift. He meant it to reverber- 
ate down the halls of time; then begin all over again; 
for you can’t fight a monster in business as you would a 
dove. Like the wounded bull moose, it lies stunned, 
apparently, until you make closer approach, then, unless 
you be wary, kills you with its powerful antlers. And 
business competition has its antlers ready. 

A dear old lady who used to be heavenly shocked at 
the sight of a pack of cards in her house or if she found 
it in the hayloft, immediately sought out the resident 
preacher to pray for her seven-up, gambling son, whose 
playful activities were as harmless as playing with his 
blocks. She ought to take a look at the catalogs. A deck 
of cards, if a harmful issue in the home, is like a sneeze 
during a tornado, compared with the home-destroying 


200 


THE MASTER HOLD 


town-destroying, community-destroying mail-order cat- 
alog. Burn if you will the old greasy deck; but burn 
the catalogs too. 


CHAPTER XXII 

GROWING GARTHAGE 



NE afternoon in early winter, Coleen was walking 


V,y down the main street of old Garthage. Many men 
were unemployed. The mines had closed. He was wonder- 
ing why they did not seek work in the mills. Few of 
the idlers wanted work for some reason; but it was 
pleasing to know that most of them had gone to the mills 
and were happy in their new work. 

He met a woman, who was dark, unlovely. Eyes 
flashed below a pretty forehead, and presently he saw 
the same eyes grow sorrowful and dull under lowered 
brows, which told of a woman’s life too vexed by care 
and labor to keep alive her spark of youth. A child, 
robust and happy, held the mother by the hand. Sever- 
al children followed her into the house. They were her 
unkept babies. 

Coleen followed her. 

“Where is your man?” he asked. 

She pointed at the closed door. Coleen went into 
the opposite room. Lying on the bed was the woman’s 
husband. He turned his head on the pillow and Coleen 
saw that the man was unusually handsome, but so sadly 
unkept as to be positively repulsive. 

“What’s wrong, Mike?” he inquired. 

“Ev — ri t’ing, Boss? Why?” 

“Out of work?” 

“Sure! No work, no mon, no nothin’ and nothin’ to 


“You great big hulk, what’s wrong with you? You 
know you can get work. I can get you a job in ten 


202 GROWING GARTHAGE 

minutes. Why don’t you go over to the mills and get 
work?” 

“But the Union says not.” 

“Well, the Union is not keeping that poor girl out 
there and your babies, is it? You get out of there and 
go with me. I can get you good work, plenty of it. 
You can have a good supper.” 

“Then I go to work for the mill and they fire me; 
this com’ny no take me back, I’ll be worse off’n ever. 
Mr. Cansby tell me no work, to wait.” 

“Well, Cansby is an intolerable fool. He has his 
stores down here and that’s all he wants, your money, 
when you have it. Come with me,” he laid a kind hand 
on the hulky shoulder. “I can get you nice clean work 
and you’ll get your money in two weeks. I’ll help you 
for two weeks, then you must look out for yourself.” 

“Ain’t ’at fonny now, Boss? My wife she go las’ 
night and pray and pray and pray and I say ‘Dam’ 
ev — ri t’ing, no pray; no good,’ and here you come. I’ll 
go!” 

Prospect of work! In the sullen face came a new 
light. The very form that was cold and hungry 
borrowed strength from the hope that came to lighten 
his burden. How strange it was that the friend came 
when needed the most. His reason was sensible enough. 
He feared to seek other employment and these fears had 
been driven into his brain by persons who cherished 
foolish ideas of their Union. 

That man is lost who keeps one mind concerning 
his respect to the Union. He must waver and retreat 
in most cases; for he owes it to his family to get to 
work where work is obtainable, and he owes no Union 
the same respect. Yet thousands upon thousands 
hold to the idea of the Union with wooden tenacity. 

Coleen took the man back to Garthage. The miner 


GROWING GARTHAGE 


203 


got work. He accepted the loan of money until pay-day. 
He returned the amount. Coleen, with the idle curiosity 
of a man who had done one part of his work, went 
down to the man’s home to see if it had made any 
change there. That was his aim, to make better homes 
for the people. 

The wife invited him into the house. Now it was a 
bare and ugly little kitchen, but it was spotless. It 
was dirty when he had first entered it. With a smiling 
and yet somewhat melancholy expression in her eyes, a 
tender look which he could understand, she opened the 
cupboard doors and he saw plenty of food within. Not 
a word of English could she speak; but her little 
daughter, a beautiful child, interpreted for her. 

That same morning he went into another home, a 
home where there was an idle man, no work, not much 
to eat. ^He could converse with the little woman, a 
type of the Roumanian. She was beautiful in her 
plain clothes, clean and fresh. Direst poverty had 
not made her succumb to the fate which swallows so 
many when poverty drags into the home. 

“You keep up, don’t you?” Coleen asked kindly. 

“Yes,” she answered, “it was what my mother taught 
me.” She pointed at a blooming geranium in the win- 
dow. By the side of the crock was a heap of pennies. 
Mechanically she picked them up and counted them, 
and then began to cry. 

There were forty-seven of them. 

With her sensitive and proud nature she felt the 
shame of her tears. 

“It is all right, Mr. Coleen. But I am homesick 1” 

Undeserved poverty was the portion of this young 
wife and mother who had come to America and Amer- 
ica’s promise, on the cheap-labor scheme which has 
dragged more than one woman to the hell it prepares 


204 


GROWING GARTHAGE 


for them when it does not offer what it promises. Here 
was a good woman. On her walls were the sacred 
pictures she had adorned them with. A cheap crucifix 
hung by a spotless window. These were the woman’s 
sacred seeking for soothing repose in nature or, prob- 
ably, oblivion in dreams and prayer. Here was the 
church lamp whose oil had been consumed to the last 
drop. 

“More work for all of us,” thought Coleen. He 
was glad to get back to his office where the whirr of 
busy wheels, the clickety-clack of telegraph instruments 
and the noise of busy typewriters turned his thoughts 
into a different channel. 

He was planning for a big day in Garthage. He 
was going to make it one of the happiest holidays the 
people had ever known. Winter! What did he care for 
that? There are amusements for winter the same as 
for summer. And it was a plan suggested by no other 
than Father Jarenski. 

“Before I leave Garthage, Mr. Coleen, we must have 
a jubilee week. I want one day sacred for the people 
we all know and it will be non-sectarian; then one 
great big red light celebration for everyone, for I 
think a little nonsense is just as essential for our people 
as anything else. I’m eager for it; although Theresa 
said to me this morning, ‘A dying man can do nothing 
easy,’ and I guess she is right. I can’t leave here see- 
ing nothing but sad faces. I want to go home, then 
into Eternity, seeing smiles in memory’s dreams.” 

“Very well, Father Jarenski, I think we can prepare 
this for the jollification and we will arrange for it be- 
fore the holiday season. And I have — an idea !” 

Many things were growing plain and simple to 
Coleen with his busy idea of the week’s pleasures. He 


GROWING GARTHAGE 205 

called in his stenographer, dictated a few letters, then 
he telephoned for Holmes. 

“Are you busy?” he inquired. 

“Busy?” answered, Holmes. “Rather, my friend, 
with a mile of cars down on the track full of pianos, 
and haven’t paid off the notes on the last ones. But 
what do you want?” 

“You are not busy. Come down here or I’ll go over 
to your place. I want to consult you.” 

“Not busy?” exclaimed Holmes. “Much you know 
about it! Why I’m actually suffering from overwork 
and worry but my suffering is mostly from a desire to 
have a good chat with you so I’m coming right over.” 

“He’s a good-natured soul,” meditated Coleen, 
“richest man in town in more ways than one — his good 
nature is a fortune to him and everyone he meets; but 
no one would know he was the capital head of this 
town’s finances!” 

When Holmes came in he drew from his pocket a few 
notes. They were for the paper, he explained. He 
slipped them under the glass-topped table. Coleen saw 
him; but did not go over to read them. He came right 
to the point. 

“Well, it’s just this way: We are planning for a 
big celebration here, business, etc., and it’s all as a sort 
of a send-off week for Father Jarenski. So we propose 
to combine a little pleasure with more serious things 
and you are going to assist us with your versatile brain. 
Want originality, you know. Don’t you think we have a 
right to celebrate?” 

“I certainly do. I’ll tell you what we can do, either 
burn Cansby at the stake or in effigy!” 

“Oh, that old salt-cured ham, you couldn’t burn him 
in effigy or in — anyplace. I’d be strictly religious if 
it were not for that doddering idiot. He is smart. I’ll 


206 


GROWING GARTHAGE 


admit that. But somehow or other I never like to see 
a smart man do a lot of nasty, dirty little underhand 
tricks. And he is as full of them as a thistle is full of 
down. He has blocked me fair and square on some oil 
land back there, and to save me I don’t see how I’m 
going to even thread my way out. Yes, he’s smart. 
But we can’t burn him; so you help out on this scheme. 
Can’t have much of a parade or anything like that, too 
cold; but we can have entertainments, suppers, dances, 
and a carnival outfit of some kind.” 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Holmes. “I’ll offer a 
prize right now, in today’s paper, if you say so, to the 
school boy or girl who collects the most of this year’s 
mail-order catalogs and we will have a big bonfire of 
them. They are coming in by the thousands now, near 
the holiday season, and we can create enthusiasm that 
way, with a prize offer.” 

“I see that is original all right. We will get up the 
advertisement today — ” 

“Then you write it. I don’t write my own. The 
only advertising I ever did was when I was a kid, not 
more than eighteen or nineteen. I went up north 
with a fellow of my own age, got stranded, and there 
we were! We solicited names of business firms and got 
a small display ad from them to paint on a new wooden 
bridge they had just built over the creek. We collected 
our money before the work was done — that is from 
most of the men. I was back in the town last summer 
and the men were still standing on the creek bank wait- 
ing for Hal and me to return to shoot us! Oh, it was 
some job of advertising all right and it was my last.” 

When he had gone, promising to help with the 
arrangements, Coleen sauntered over to the glass- 
topped table. He read: 

Keep cool in temper; enter into no argument or con- 


GROWING GARTHAGE 207 

tention on politics, ethics or religion, with this year’s 
Baltimore oysters. 

Never work before breakfast. 

Don’t work after breakfast. 

Lemonade in moderate quantities will help you. 

Don’t perspire in January. 

Be kindly affectionate as St. Paul recommends. 

Too often the editorial room is dark, dismal chilly — 

Employ a fire-headed stenographer. 

Don’t forget your oatmeal. 

Hide this year’s diary. 

Don’t overwork the undeveloped brain. 

Coffee — olives. 

Coleen drew out the paper, directed an envelope to 
Holmes, enclosed the newspaper clipping and returned 
it to the former owner with a little card, bearing this 
inscription. 

“Come in without knocking; and go out the same 
way!” 

Then he returned to his desk with nerves exhilarated 
and dancing; for many were his plans for the work that 
must be done. 

The next day he took a trip over to Brannon. He 
came home by another route which brought him through 
one of the prettiest towns in eastern Ohio. But, unlike 
many towns that knew the shock from the mail-order 
traffic, here was a town that was using every effort to 
keep up its former prestige, seemingly without avail. 
What the place must be like in the summer he could 
easily imagine. There were well kept lawns, every- 
where he looked. Flower-boxes, ornamental and 
beautiful, graced window ledges, holding bits of fluffy 
snow, caught in the dead branches of vines that once 
had graced them during the summer. There was the 
genteel air of culture, refinement, nice homes, many 


208 GROWING GARTHAGE 

stores; but — that eternal sameness that lies like a pall 
over a dead town. 

“What is it?” he inquired of a woman he met in one 
of the stores. He had spoken of the dullness, and it 
was the busy season in most places. 

The woman shook her head. A man idly standing 
by the counter, looked round. 

“We are the victims of business perfidy, my good 
man,” replied the man. “We laid our laurels at other’s 
feet. We still have money in this town; but it is going. 
This town, sir, is dead. In spite of my pessimism I am 
an absurd idealist, and because I am perfectly well 
aware of this, as a rule I never laugh at other people’s 
idealism ; but this sort of idealism is really funny, think- 
ing we can live without labor. I’m just a loafer in this 
store, a mere clerk. I don’t love my work. I haven’t 
even a platonic feeling of friendship for it. My mother 
longed, worked, prayed and did all in her power to es- 
tablish me in an immense drug business here. You 
know what that means, the drug business, fifty-fifty, 
and the town virtually stung itself to death. It’s the 
same with all of us. Why don’t I leave? Because of 
that sacrificing mother. I’d leave now, this minute; 
but you know after a certain age, a woman does not 
care to go to new places. Mother has her friends, her 
church, her little world and we manage somehow to get 
along.” 

He left to sell a small tablet to a school girl. 

Coleen looked at him. There was a serious man of 
great capabilities. It showed in the physical man. His 
was a clean, critical intellect; a man without any false 
illusions of life. What this man was capable of doing 
if he had the opportunity was promising ; but, as Coleen 
studied him, and he liked him immensely, he felt that 
here was a man who would go along with the driftwood 


GROWING GARTHAGE 


209 


and eventually be cast ashore with the debris of human- 
ity. Too old now to make a new beginning, too bitter 
against present ones, it was just one more example 
of a mother’s son who had worn out his ambition in his 
youth. In years he was not so remarkably old. In 
wisdom he had lived many years. 

In a sense Coleen likened the clerk to no other than 
Father Jarenski. His feeling of brotherly affection for 
that type of man amounted to something like a beautiful 
virtue in the heart of Garthage’s foremost editor. 

He did not talk with the man again. He only 
remembered him with a sense of pity that any man 
feels for another when he knows there is failure and that 
worst kind which the innocent must sometimes endure 
because of the oppression of others. The Serpent left 
the trail in the dust which has been a highway for man 
from that memorable day to this one. 

In the heart of Coleen was gladness that Garthage 
had progressed, that it was a town of usefulness, enter- 
prise and growing industry. 

He turned his car into a familiar road; then some- 
thing tugged at his memory. There, right before him 
shuddering in the cold, was the memorable place where 
he had met Natalie, the song-girl of his heart. Quickly 
he sped by it slightly frowning as if the scowl would 
drive away the imp of memory which seemed to clamor 
for pleasing recognition. “That little event,” he medi- 
tated, “was my one bright candle in the wind, and the 
light went out!” 


CHAPTER XXIII 

NEW ARRANGEMENTS 

C OLEEN and Holmes had branched out in an entirely 
new direction. They had taken an active part in 
the fight of the Ohio valley cities to have the U. S. 
armor plate located at Garthage. Other places were 
under consideration; but Coleen wanted the site to be 
right in Garthage. Every available supply could be ob- 
tained at home. The new plant would employ in the 
neighborhood of ten thousand or fifteen thousand men. 
This would mean an additional population of from 
twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand to the town or 
city so fortunate as to secure the plant. Hundreds 
of plans could be developed if the Naval Board accepted 
their proposition; and there really was no reason why 
they should not. West Virginia had its inducements, 
good ones, but none better than offered by Ohio’s 
fertile hills and mountainous districts, rich in mineral 
ore, oils and other valuable materials. 

Busy as was the editor with other affairs, he never 
gave up one side of his social work, that of looking after 
his boys, as he explained it. 

At one time, to encourage some boys to go with him 
to an evening meeting, he removed his own collar, be- 
cause the loafers gave the “no collar” excuse for not 
accompanying the editor to the church. “If you don’t 
want to go for religion,” he had said, quietly and 
pleasantly, “then go and be good sports.” And the 
boys went. At another time his attention was attracted 
by a quartette of male voices he heard in the distance. 
He followed the sound which led to one of the most 


211 


NEW ARRANGEMENTS 

notorious saloons in the place. Despite the law that no 
singing was allowed in the saloon, these boys were sing- 
ing of their own volition. It was sweet, the melodies 
so beautifully harmonizing with each other that some- 
thing like a human cry came from the depths of the 
song wasted on the foul air of the saloon. 

Coleen entered the saloon. The boys were not drink- 
ing. They were lonely boys, good-hearted, with no place 
to go, nothing, really to give them pleasure. There was a 
public library; but these were not reading boys; there 
was also the Young Men’s Christian Association; but 
these were foreign boys and felt lost in the fine, big 
building. There were theatres, excellent ones in their 
way; but these boys were not heavy wage earners. They 
were the type of uneducated lads that you find in barber 
shops, pool rooms, saloons, blacksmith shops and other 
easy loafing places. 

The next night he found the boys on the street and 
spoke of their singing in a way that only Coleen had, 
then he asked the boys to go home with him for supper. 
They could not believe it. Each refused the invitation; 
but he insisted. At last they went, like a lot of shame- 
faced boys who were about to face a cold-hearted judge 
for some innocent mischief, not right according to law. 

Because Julia knew of their coming, long before the 
boys knew it, she was there to greet them. They held 
back, sat down, ashamed, awkward, afraid to speak above 
a whisper. They removed their hats, twirled them be- 
tween their knees, looked lost and felt very much that 
way. 

“Before we have supper, boys, I want to show you my 
rigging upstairs.” He led the way and the boys tiptoed 
after him. Coleen pressed the electric button at the door, 
instantly flooding an immense hall with dozens of electric 
lights, softly blurred with pale blue shades that gave a 


2 1 2 NEW ARRANGEMENTS 

most artistic finish to the blue and walnut-finished apart- 
ment. 

Here was everything to amuse mankind in the way of 
an evening’s entertainment. The boys had heard of this 
wonderful hall, a place to them which meant an apart- 
ment for stage people or speakers. On a platform was the 
baby grand piano. Occupying immense space were two 
billiard tables. The entire store of gymnastic supplies 
was conveniently arranged and nothing promised a finer 
dancing floor than the one they stepped upon as softly 
as if it were some prayer rug of the Ancient Fathers. 

But boys are boys the wide world over. Coleen had 
put them at their ease. He was a boy with them. He 
had invited none of his personal friends. It was to get 
at the heart of these youngsters, each at the age when 
one or all of them might go sadly astray, that he was 
looking. Never would they forget that first night, which 
was the beginning of their best years, for times without 
number they went to that hall, and other boys went with 
them. They formed a club and most of them owed their 
working positions to Coleen. But four of them, the 
leaders, are today the best male quartette in eastern 
Ohio, or the whole east for that matter; for voices with 
native sweetness, strength and melody are quickly 
recognized and somehow or other the most obscure, de- 
spised and downtrodden person on earth can come into 
his own when the voice sings him into the good graces of 
the public. 

There were times when Julia and Sonia entertained the 
young men. No longer were they the collarless boys of 
the street. They were busy, ambitious, splendid young 
men. What they learned from being brought in con- 
tact with refined and cultured womanhood was as pur- 
poseful and useful to them as all else. They did not 
have it in their own homes. These boys were of low 


NEW ARRANGEMENTS 


213 


birth, possibly many of the lowest origin; but all came 
into wealth of manhood which is above price. 

Were we to hear one of them speak of Coleen today, 
no doubt there would be that sentiment of appreciation 
which the human tongue can but feebly express. Oh, 
the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe 
with a person, having neither to weigh thought nor meas- 
ure words, but only to pour them all right out just as 
they are — chaff and grain together, knowing that they 
will be understood by the listeners! How nice to keep 
the gold and then, with a boyish laugh, blow away the 
chaff! 

Another of John Coleen ’s best works. It was no grand 
affair, so says the world, because no fields are lost and 
no crowns won. But the high, clear song sent melody 
heavenward, and boys earned a beautiful boyhood which 
would have been denied them without the editor’s boyish 
feeling for them. 

Father Jarenski always said when Coleen went out on 
a mission for boys that he was the good Samaritan. 
“Coleen gives them something of himself,” he told his 
sister. “He gives them human interest, sympathy, love, 
kindness, something to feed their hearts. He never asks 
them to pray. He makes them want to do it.” 

Despite his good work, mapy, indeed were Coleen ’s new 
enemies, men who envied him everything he did. They, in 
many instances, had nothing to envy save the gracious 
and loyal spirit that lived in the heart of the editor; but 
out of every hundred men he was safe in believing that 
many of them would do him an evil turn if they dared. 
None was worse at it than Cansby ; but that was because 
the storekeeper, once the richest man in town, had not 
kept up with the stride. He hated the originality of Co- 
leen. He could not imitate him; but he knew many traps 


214 


NEW ARRANGEMENTS 


to set that would offset Coleen’s plans. Many he tried 
with brilliant success. And Coleen wondered why. 

While his arrangements were progressing for the gala 
week, he found his young co-worker enjoying a melan- 
choly day-dream. 

“Ell bet you a free pass across the Dixey line that you 
are thinking of her.” 

Weatherby nodded his blond head. “You guess right.” 

“Why don’t you go down there and marry her?” 

Coleen was sorry the moment his bit of idle talk had 
passed his lips. One look into the deep blue eyes of the 
young man showed to the editor that all was not going 
well with his brilliant news writer. 

But Weatherby smiled. “As I am not married, may- 
be it is as well that I don’t disturb the tranquility of my 
bachelor life as long as I live. I’ll keep on. It doesn’t 
matter now whether she has dark, fair or red hair. A 
wife always grows old and worries a man with useless 
complaint.” 

Coleen left him with his lamentations. “And there 
is a chap worth his weight in gold,” thought the editor 
in all seriousness. “He has a warm southern heart; but, 
after all, down South love affairs are as plentiful as 
persimmons. But he has had a jolt, a bad one.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 

THE PAGEANT 

A FTER all it was Holmes who suggested the pageant 
as a most befitting celebration. It would be easy 
enough he knew for every foreign citizen to produce some- 
thing from the old country to aid them in their masquer- 
ade. If unable to carry out the plan, then cheap materials 
could be furnished. Squads were formed. It seemed 
that almost every nationality was represented. Then 
pride swept in, as it will do on such occasions, and con- 
siderable rivalry was manifest among the nationalities. 
Every society and organization included in the program, 
and outside towns were invited to be present, merged their 
own interest in the interest of what they hoped would be 
the parade, provided the night set for it was not too cold. 
If weather precluded this part of the program, at least 
they could make some sort of big showing in their Coli- 
seum building. School boys were eager to be Indians 
Costumes were rented for this purpose. There were two 
hundred Quinnipac Indians, with elaborate arrows, In- 
dian shields and fantastic insignia. Girls were permitted 
and urged to be as pretty and dainty as possible in any 
costume which pleased their fancy. But one thing was not 
permitted. No masks should be worn. The mayor put 
this in his proclamation. He had seen too many abuses 
of cunning deviltry behind masks, and no person was al- 
lowed to forget for a single minute that this gala week was 
not only a celebration for Garthage and her success; but 
it was equally an honor event for Father Jarenski. At 
least eight thousand persons were actively engaged in 
completing the plans. It had to be done by the people, 


216 


THE PAGEANT 


for any organization would be six months in completing 
the work for the dramatic spectacle. 

The week preceding the gala event came in with terrif- 
ic late fall storms, dashing rain, high wind, snow, then 
slush. No attempt was made to decorate the town. It 
promised anything but propitious weather. Then, as 
often is the case, the fury of the wind seemed to drive 
back the storms, dry the streets and the roads. The 
sun came out bright and while the days were actually 
warm, yet the nights were cool. All hearts lightened, 
at least there would be a few days of fair weather. Bus- 
iness was continued during the day ; but all places of bus- 
iness closed at two o’clock in the afternoon. School 
closed at the same hour. The first evening was memor- 
able, being set for the progress of the nation. In it the 
whole of Garthage set forth to parade the crowded 
streets. There were men on foot, men on queer looking 
papier mache ostriches, boy scouts, vehicles to astonish 
the natives, many of them of original make and decidedly 
novel to say the least. Brass bands were divided only by 
the nationality following them. There were numerous 
bands in the procession and dozens of gaily decorated 
automobiles loaded with Bohemian women and children. 
The foreign born had seized the occasion to garb them- 
selves and children in brightly colored garments brought 
from the Fatherland or else skillfully imitated in America. 
It was a time of the liveliest excitement. Possibly the 
Italians made the finest display. There was something 
touching in their native vanity and the spectacle pre- 
sented by the hundreds of Italians, men, women and 
children, was a strong feature complimentary to the race. 
Every nationality carried its banner “WORK FOR 
GARTHAGE... LIVE HERE, BUY HERE, STAY 
HERE . . . BOOST GARTHAGE . . ” or similar terms, 

There were dances innumerable and every night there 


THE PAGEANT 


217 


was feasting at the different halls. No person but Fa- 
ther Jarenski could answer just why it was that every 
saloon was closed in the place. But he had merely 
mentioned what might occur if they were open and, as 
each saloon keeper was a good friend and respected the 
priest, if not his holy office, so they respected a last 
wish. The doors were closed. Only good nature was 
found where only too often the pageant turns to a dis- 
gusting spectacle of drunken hilarity. 

On Wednesday night the Governor spoke to the bus- 
iness men. It reached all ears however. He touched 
the mainspring when he mentioned why they must 
boost their own town. It was worthy of it and the de- 
sirability of continuing prosperity was truly manifest in 
this big celebration. He would not take their time. Peo- 
ple wanted to be amused. Still he did one pleasing 
thing when he asked that different nationalities sing 
their own country’s patriotic songs. These, accompanied 
by their native music, which was thrilling and truly 
patriotic, afterwards joined in singing America. 

On the night when all were invited to the Schofield 
lots to see the burning of the catalogs, they were sur- 
prised to see hundreds of canvas bags filled with these 
books, torn to ribbons. This had been done to insure their 
quick cremation. Thousands of catalogs were so de- 
stroyed, after being received at the stations, where prizes 
were awarded. It was an American girl, Louise Tracy, 
who won first prize, having collected the greatest number 
of that year’s catalogs. In the field, where the bonfire 
was to be built, stood the image of a woman. She was 
attired in cheesecloth of different colors, and the grotes- 
que attempt to be stylish was ludicrous. In her out- 
stretched arms she bore a long banner, bearing the cap- 
tion, “I buy my clothes from mail-order houses.” As the 
crowd wended its way toward the field, lights were turned 


218 


THE PAGEANT 


on and flaming Roman candles lighted around her. The 
spectacle, while only a burlesque, was not without unique 
attractiveness. The paper litter was piled high around 
the misguided lady, boys and girls doing the work while 
every band played “The Star Spangled Banner” which 
was no louder than the cheers and yells that went up 
with the flames that fairly leaped to the sky. The 
crowd fell back. The fire was intense. Posts holding 
Roman candles fell on the burning heap and sent their 
red flame in every direction. Bits of small fireworks 
squirmed out of the blaze and scudded across the earth; 
fiery snakes leaped upward, wriggled and sank to the 
ground, nigger-chasers caused yells as they chased the 
crowds, dying beneath petticoats that were snatched up 
from the teasing fireworks. Once a blast flew upward, 
burst into a dragon’s head and sank at the woman’s feet. 
Then the fire slowly died down and a most unexpected 
thing happened. At a distance from the crowd a sheet 
of flame burst on the horizon. It was fireworks. A 
waterfall flowed before their enchanted gaze. Other 
splendid pieces were shown. No person knew there was 
this part of the program. At least the public was un- 
aware. Then, when everyone was expecting the last 
piece, there appeared in the heavens a beautiful cross. 
For a moment there was that solemn tension that one 
might experience had the cross been a real phenomena 
in the night sky. Every heart was touched, knowing 
just why that emblem of Christianity that means every- 
thing to the whole wide world should face them in its 
sweet tragedy, there above hearts that knew no rest 
without it, or least, its significance. Then it slowly 
descended and burst into thousands of roses, lilies and 
palms. Nothing was so beautiful during the whole week. 
“Surely,” said an eager spectator, “this is the last.” 
But, no, a banner unfurled its long length, unwinding 


THE PAGEANT 


219 


gracefully like a long ribbon held by fairy hands. And 
there in the sky, high, above them was the picture of 
Father Jarenski, looking down at his people and where 
lay the roses, lilies and palms! On the banner they 
read, “I DID IT FOR HIM.” 

Coleen turned to Father Jarenski, seated by him in 
his own automobile. But the priest’s feeble old hands 
covered his face. Tears trickled down that face. “Oh, 
I can’t be worthy, I am not worthy. Mother of God, 
I’m completely outdone!” 

“I’m surprised myself, Father Jarenski, I wonder who 
did this? But why ask. It was either Mr. Holmes or 
— why, if course it was Holmes. Look at that man’s 
face. He’s the happiest fellow here.” At that moment 
Holmes looked over at Father Jarenski and no person 
doubted what he had done and why he had done it. It 
was the final piece. It was the last but one of their 
one week’s celebration. The morrow, Sunday, was 
sacred. It was Father Jarenski’s last working Sunday 
in America. 

* * * * * 

“That evening when the Carpenter swept out 
The fragrant shavings from the workshop floor, 

And placed the tools in order, and shut to 
And barred for the last time the humble door, 

And, going on His way to save the world, 

Turned from the laborer’s lot forever more, 

I wonder — was He glad ? 

“That morning when the Carpenter walked forth 
From Joseph’s doorway, in the glimmering light, 

And bade His Holy Mother long farewell, 

And, through the rose-shot skies with dawning bright, 


220 


THE PAGEANT 


Saw glooming the dark shadow of the cross, 

Yet, seeing, set His feet toward Calvary’s height, 

I wonder — was He sad? 

“Ah, when the Carpenter went on His way, 

He thought not for himself of good or ill; 

One was his path, through shop or thronging men 
Craving His help, e’en to the cross-crowned hill, 

In toiling, healing, teaching, suffering all 
His joy, His life, to do the Father’s will; 

And earth and heaven are glad.” 

During the final meeting, Father Jarenski spoke of 
Christmas. “I have spent many of them with you,” he 
said. “I want you to think of me and my dear sister, 
Theresa and pray for our safety on the high seas. I shall 
pray for others who are lonely like myself, away from 
their homes, for the very poor to whom the day will 
bring little gladness; for the children in America and 
everywhere whose dream of Christmas may not be a dis- 
appointment ; for the sick, the sorrowing and the weary. 
Jesus was born in poverty, found no welcome in the 
world, and to be content is my wish as that was His.” 

Father Jarenski did not speak at length. All knew 
the strain that it brought on his weak physical strength. 
No person expected a speech. But his last sermon was 
typical of the man, his love for those who needed it most, 
his promise of what he would do and wished to do, and 
the blessing he pronounced on all mankind. “Grant 
these blessings, I beseech Thee in His name, Amen.” 


CHAPTER XXV 

THE GLAD HAND 

T O the utter amazement of Coleen he had a caller, no 
other than the man he had met in the drug store, a 
man whose name he did not know, but who knew 
Coleen ’s and traveled to Garthage to meet him. 

When the editor found the man waiting for him, he 
was more than pleased. In a way the disappointed caller 
reminded him of a fine old print, retouched with vivid 
colors, almost fresh and new in pristine loveliness. It 
was impossible not to admire the stranger’s physical ap- 
pearance, for not only was he attractive in a physical 
sense ; but there was something in the strong, comely face 
that looked like a man who had quitted politics or finance 
at a saving moment and thus spared his pride a fall. 
There are just such looking men. And Coleen said as 
much to Mr. Gardner, who smiled whimsically at the 
compliment. 

“It just belies the looks,” he retorted, not unkindly, 
“for it is but the husk after all. Still, I guess it has been 
somewhat gratifying too. Once, a good many years ago, 
I was sitting in a lobby with some men and a dapper 
little fellow, a minister he called himself, seated himself 
by me and said: ‘Young man, I admire you. I want to 
tell you so. You are the physical man that I wanted to 
be. I’m nothing but a sickly, no account circuit minister. 
I have nothing only what is in my head. I’m a graduate 
of Yale; but I can’t get over the sickening idea of my 
physical imperfection.’ Well, he was a little runt all 
right; but he was an intellectual light. I have never 
forgotten his hands. I dare say they had never touched 


222 


THE GLAD HAND 


manual labor, for the fingers seemed closely united like 
you see in an infant’s hand. But he had what I wanted, 
an education.” 

“But you are educated,” Coleen put in good naturedly. 
“That’s your trouble, I judge, educated above the aver- 
age and sticking in the rut. What do you know?” 

The man placed a forefinger against his temple, 
laughed easy and low. “A little of everything, especially 
law, a confounded lot about chemistry, and nothing about 
business. That’s exactly why I am here. After that 
talk with you and what you said concerning the rapid 
growth of this town, it occurred to me that surely, with 
what wealth remains in our town, we can do something, 
have a booster’s meeting and agitate something worth 
while. I see they are agitating it all over the country. I 
know what to do; but I’d rather learn how to do it from 
those who have made a success of it.” 

“I understand,” replied Coleen, taking up a daily pa- 
per from a pile that lay neatly arranged on his desk. 
“Now there is boosting and boosting ; but, for downright 
slovenliness of the work, listen to a part of this. Here 
is a town or rather a city whose reporter gives out a feeble 
gasp like this: ‘City trade boosters, between 80 and 85 
strong, were given a warm welcome when they came to 

M Wednesday night and held an informal meeting 

with the business men in the Chamber of Commerce 
rooms. There was no fixed program and everyone pres- 
ent enjoyed the meeting.’ Now this is followed up with 
a lengthy description of the three Pullman cars that were 
made comfortable for the tourists and he has written at 
length that the men enjoyed a hearty repast. He says 
the train laid over night and the visitors departed Thurs- 
day morning at ten o’clock.” 

“No essentials,” smiled Mr. Gardner. 

“Essentials? I see none. That’s exactly the fault. I 


THE GLAD HAND 


223 


have discharged men for less offense. What does an ar- 
ticle of that nature carry to the public? There isn’t a 
word concerning its importance; yet I know the editor of 
this paper, know him well, and he allows this society 
column to go in on a news page ! It ought to be in the 
society news. That’s just the humbuggery of articles 
written rapid fire to fill space. He has sounded no warn- 
ing, given no business suggestion to the business men, 
made no reference whatever as to what is up to the 
wholesaler or retailer, to aid the retailer and you know 
that is where co-operation must exist to help out every 
town. You can’t promote service that way. What does 
this article amount to in any sense? Nothing. It takes 
up valuable space for no use whatever. Riding around in 
Pullman cars, making speeches to a few men and playing 
the brass band every ten minutes won’t land the job. If 
I had but one way to work out this problem, I believe I 
would leave it with the women.” 

“Women?” Gardner laughed boyishly. “Women? 
God save the country.” 

“And why not women? That day I was in your store 
you made mention of your aged mother, her sacrifice, 
her hope, her struggle to get you into a store of your 
own, where you never got, principally because you wanted 
to be a lawyer and for other reasons; but suppose every 
woman in your town had that same ambition, was stirred 
with the necessity of home protection, don’t tell me that 
it wouldn’t amount to a crusade and a fine one at that. 
The saddest lesson I ever had to learn was this : That the 
fellow who has enough or sufficient isn’t worrying about 
the fellow who has nothing. And the man with nothing 
may be bright and purposeful, though he is too busy get- 
ting bread and butter to be active in business. It has been 
said that some of the finest business logic that ever made 
eloquent the lips of man came right from East End Lon- 


224 


THE GLAD HAND 


don, where men live like animals and die worse; but their 
logic is like the pure and clean mushroom that grows in 
dark and filth. It is like pressing the soul out of a man 
to get this logic, and those who have dared their person 
in its unwholesome midst, risking death or disease, getting 
only a drop at a time of this logic, have gathered the 
costly radium of business. A life for a thought. And 
much of it is wasted on the foul air. You see it is this 
way: A man can get facts, data, good, sound, reasonable 
ideas; but it is like driving a nail into steel to get that 
fact home to the people.” 

“Well, I understand that,” replied his listener. 

“But you didn’t understand about the women?” 

“I’ll admit that is a new phase, still it seems that men 
can conduct their business without the women worrying 
about it. Oh, yes, I do sell to more women and children 
than to men — I know I do — and of course they should be 
intelligent buyers, but I don’t think I ever dissected it 
that way. Then you know I am not successful in busi- 
ness, partly for one reason and largely for other draw- 
backs.” 

“There shouldn’t be a drawback in your city. The 
town will dry up and blow up, just as sure as you live if 
you can’t bring the business heads and the buying public 
to pleasing and profitable relationship. While I was 
there I learned of several ventures undertaken that fell 
flat, the least of which was that Adam’s grist mill. Think 
of the flour used in this State, millions of barrels of it; 
and think of your territory and natural facilities for mak- 
ing and shipping flour. You are right in the wheat belt 
and you let that business go over the lines in miles and 
miles of grain trains to the bigger marts, where prices 
are affixed and you pay their price. And right over in 
Brannon (you know the place), didn’t they do the same 
thing with their creamery? There they had the whole 


THE GLAD HAND 


225 


country wide from which to purchase their supply of the 
finest cream in the State. Every farmer wanted to sell 
his milk to them. They organized for that purpose. 
Thousands of gallons of rich milk could be obtained 
daily. The shipping was a trifle inconvenient but really 
no hindrance to the trade. Why did they lose it? Sim- 
ply because two of their engineers and three of their but- 
ter makers were incompetents. Think of letting a busi- 
ness like that go to the wall, when there are experts in the 
country to turn it into cash. There were many women 
who upheld the idea of keeping the trade. They went 
about it at their Grange meetings and kept it alive for a 
year or so, after which the men let it drop, sold their ex- 
cess of cattle, and all but impoverished this part of the 
country for beef, veal, butter, milk, and cream. Now 
whose fault is that? I say it is the fault of the sleeping 
ones who know that a farm makes a man some kind of 
a living and let it go at that.” 

“We had a hard struggle to bring in the produce right 
here. I have seen hundreds of milk cans piled up over at 
the station, cream going east, west, north and south of us, 
while we underwent a famine. We were helping the far- 
mers to get good roads, agitating everything helpful for 
them, and they were not doing a thing for us. We all 
but boycotted them. But, rather than fight them, we 
got them here and then we talked business to them. We 
had statistics to prove that, if they did make two cents 
more on the gallon, that in less than a year they had 
lost a fortune. The grand total of these unbusinesslike 
ventures is unlucky for the parasites, I can tell you.” 

“Have you an original plan to get at the work?” 

“Original? No. Just ordinary common sense. You, 
knowing the law, ought to know that business can’t be 
loosely conducted, that to hold a little stream it must have 
many tributaries and not many outlets.” 


226 


THE GLAD HAND 


“Yes, of course I understand that; but it seems to me 
that it is hard to reach the people.” 

“You bet it’s hard ! That is the hard part of the work. 
You can talk, write and sing business logic; but unless 
you get a hearing you are barking up the wrong tree. It 
may surprise you, but I think our big deal came in when 
we got in sympathy with the working men, their wives 
and families. We started that way. If I do say it my- 
self, this is not a city of oppression, but one of helpful- 
ness. We are like certain lodge orders, stick to the 
brotherhood, without exacting a fee or any restrictions, 
save those of mutual interest. Then we went to the 
heads of every business department, explaining the need 
of general business appearance in their stores. We had 
the clean-up work done around every store, mill, factory 
and business house. This is a clean city. Later the 
women did active work in civic pride. They stood by 
their colors when everything went wrong. I know we 
did have to fight for our own. I think we were the Father 
of thought in the mail-order traffic. That was what 
we started out to kill and what, if you will believe me, 
we are still after. I think we drove home more good 
facts last week during our gala week here than at any * 
other time. We meant it to fight against mail-order 
traffic, and we certainly went to extremes to accomplish 
it.” 

“Well you know persons are bound to buy where they 
can get the best results and if that isn’t at home, why 
not some place else?” 

“You are right ; but we don’t teach it that way. We 
let our business men make it possible for people to do bet- 
ter at home. No person knows the graft there is in doing 
business by mail until he hunts up statistics and then it 
is almost unbelievable.” 

“We never went about this in a haphazard way. We 


THE GLAD HAND 


227 


had to organize business men to have authority in an 
effort to restore business and protect home industry. Re- 
garding our operations there is no secret ; but it was work 
for everyone in this city. We had to begin all over 
everytime business brought new home seekers here. 
And if ever you had any dealing with camp followers, 
let me tell you they are like sheep, going in all direc- 
tions, huddled against a storm and far fleeing in mild 
weather, scattered over all creation, buying at random, 
selling the same way. Queerest thing on earth, but 
America is like a kid that can get his bank open with 
a penknife and starts out to spend the savings. Only 
today, let tomorrow go hang. Now that we have in- 
dustries here that plainly indicate there will be per- 
manent citizens, why, much of our trouble is over. It is 
when they come, buy at random, leave at night and 
never come back that they help no industry and hurt 
themselves in the bargain.” 

“Then it amounts to a raid?” The caller’s blue 
eyes shot merriment from their deep, thoughtful pools. 

“A raid? Yes, and you dare not shoot them. But 
you come with me to dinner, then I’ll go with you over 
the town and convince you that I have not been giving 
you a line of talk for nothing. And the first place we 
will go will be over where I started. I’m as proud of 
Old Garthage today as a little boy with his first' sure- 
enough-shoot gun. It isn’t exactly like this end of 
town; but it can sit up and sing, ‘J ust as I am with- 
out one plea,’ for it was saved in a nick of time. Oh, 
yes, you can go with me to dinner. Never ruffles my 
lady, always ready for someone. That’s the way we 
live. When I have to cut out the social side of my life 
and take my man to the club, we won’t be happy. I 
want to show you my home. I think there is just one 
spot on earth, and that is my home. No, I have no 


228 


THE GLAD HAND 


children. We lost our only child. But you will see a 
boy who is all the world to me. He lives with me part 
of the time, in fact, most of the time; but he’s a good 
little Indian and goes home once in a while. And here 
he comes this very minute. Good-looking? That boy 
is handsome. ’Lo, Tony, coming to take me to dinner ? 
Well, we are going all right and so is Mr. Gardner.” 

Tony smiled, squeezed Coleen’s hand and trotted 
merrily along with the two men. 

“You’ll let me hold the wheel?” asked the child. 

“Yes, Tony, you can take us home. Some driver, 
my boy, only his legs aren’t long enough yet to touch 
the ground 1” 

* * * * * 


CHAPTER XXVI 

ANOTHER TURN 

T HE following week Julia went to Pittsburg. It was 
during the rush of holiday shopping. She took Tony 
with her. It was the child’s first trip to the big city. 
From time to time she sent word back of their pleasant 
shopping expeditions. “We will be home the 23rd,” she 
wired. 

Coleen left her to the pleasures which a woman finds 
at the Yuletide season. Always, save one, had their 
Yuletide been pleasant. It was her pleasure to make 
others happy. He never knew and never was to know, 
how her heart ached for little Paul when other happy 
children looked forward with all animation to the joy 
of Santa Claus and their gifts. She had even for- 
warded gifts which would be sure to reach Father 
Jarenski and his sister at or near the Christmas day. It 
was the pleasure of Christmas to her. 

Coleen, busy at his desk, took a telegram from Pitts- 
burg. They had arrived daily. 

“Come at once. Julia was instantly killed at three 
o’clock; boy injured. At my home. Joseph Branson.” 

Coleen jumped to his feet. Something like the 
sound of breaking glass, a crash, a blow, struck wickedly 
at him. Was that thing for him? He read it again, 
then the third time. He laid the telegram on his desk, 
picked it up, half fell into his chair and sprang up 
again. He sent for Zilki, and handed him the telegram. 

“Stop the machines, boys,” he said, turning to the 
groups of men who rushed to his office as soon as the 


230 


ANOTHER TURN 


word was sent out. “A paper is a paper; but I don’t 
want one published now. This was her paper.” 

He wouldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be that the 
happy, laughing Julia who left him at the station had 
been killed. And how had it occurred? That it was 
not exaggerated he knew, for the telegram was signed 
by Julia’s brother. She was dead, the companion of 
his days and nights ! And the boy, the cherub of love 
in their home, in two homes. How could he give up 
either of them? What were people doing? Why was 
it he could do nothing for himself? He felt like a 
coward going to Sonia. Tell her they must; but what 
could they tell her? The horror of the stricken mother 
was terrible to contemplate. 

But they did tell her. Then, on the train, three 
anxious souls, each with a different sorrow, yet united 
in the terrible calamity, rushed madly on to the great 
city. 

“Julia’s dead, Julia’s dead,” clanked every wheel; 
the whistles screamed it, a thousand voices spoke and 
told it over and over. Then merciful night came on, 
darkness came and the long, long journey was over, 
only long in the unmerciful anxiety. 

It was the result of an automobile accident. The 
child hovered between life and death. No one, not even 
the attending physicians, dared say he could live, while 
in the room below was all that earth held dear to Coleen. 
His wife, his companion of years, the mother of his 
only child, the girl he had chosen from the whole wide 
world. How could he go look on the face that would 
smile him no greeting? How could be believe that all 
was well. Where were his tears? Why couldn’t he 
go away into the deep of some forest and scream? Why 
why, oh, why must this come to him? What had he 
done? Was it the law of life or the vengeance of Fate? 


ANOTHER TURN 


231 


Julia, his Julia ! Kind nurses were leading Sonia away. 
Her stifled cries were the heartbreaking sobs of mother 
love. Death in all its sorrow is nothing compared to 
the uncertainty of life. We reconcile ourselves to the 
inevitable; but when life hangs by a mere thread of 
chance, who can describe that grief? 

Zilki put one arm across the shoulder of his stricken 
friend where it lay. Neither man spoke, then, like a 
hurt boy, Coleen turned, and it was Zilki who caught 
him. All the bonny, brown curls could not hide that 
death blow on the white temple! A blow on the fine 
white flesh of her who knew nothing but love and 
caresses. A death-dealing blow at that ! 

There was a quiet hush in the household. Coleen 
followed the men into the hall, then he turned, walked 
back into the room, closed and locked the door. 

Alone ! 

Pitifully alone! 

And no one disturbed him. He was left alone with 
her, his shattered dreams, his companion of earthly love ! 

sj« s|s 5|e % 

The weeks following the tragedy in John Coleen’s life 
found him working without one incentive. What was it 
for? Like a man who had reached a great stone wall, 
he stopped. Why try to push his way through that 
wall? Surely there was nothing beyond that he 
needed; certainly nothing that he wanted. There had 
been a time when his point of view was unlimited, as 
often is true of every ambitious man, then suddenly cut 
off by a lowly grave. 

He returned to his work but to tell the truth he did 
not work. He closed his big house with its mournful- 
looking windows. He lived in a hotel. The only per- 
son on earth who did interest him was little Tony. 
Coleen ’s heart bled anew when he saw the little fellow, 


232 


ANOTHER TURN 


still walking with one arm stiff and useless. “It’s get- 
ting better, Daddie, so don’t worry. You know it 
doesn’t hurt me any more. And, Daddie, it didn’t hurt 
me then. It all came so awful quick.” 

Coleen nodded his head at these familiar remarks. 
He heard them often. The intuition of the child sensed 
that in a large measure his own illness made his best 
friend very sad. He visited him every day; but his 
little room up at Coleen’s was closed. His playthings 
had been taken away. He had missed one Christmas 
in his lifetime that he was never to recall. 

Coleen had heard from Father Jarenski. He and 
his good sister had arrived at their former home in Lodz. 
He answered the letter, telling of the sorrow in his life; 
then he got his business affairs in shape, called Holmes 
and told his friend that he was going away. 

“I don’t know where I am going. I’m going and I 
may not come back for some time. I can’t stay here. 
I haven’t a spark of life in me. I feel like a shell or 
a dry husk.” 

Holmes did not reply. His eyes followed the 
geometrical line on the rug in Coleen’s office. What 
could he say? After all wasn’t it best that Coleen 
should leave the town? It would be almost as sad for 
him upon his return. Holmes realized other conditions 
that took the editor from the busy mart of trade. Death 
would in time lose its sting. If it did not, all humanity 
would be driven to wildest distraction; for who of us 
escapes it? But there was a man, without any known 
relative and as most men work for some person, here 
was one who had enough money for his own use and 
could be most liberal with it, though every human 
interest was cut off or closed, like the clogging of life’s 
greatest artery. He had no ambition, for nothing 


ANOTHER TURN 233 

stirred his ambition. Month followed month and still 
he had no ambition. 

It now was early summer. The lethargy choked him, 
loneliness paralyzed him. He put his business in the 
hands of a competent attorney and left. 

For several days he traveled Eastward, then he lost 
himself in the whirl of New York. He looked sullenly 
at its gigantic struggle. It interested him without 
creating any desire in him to become a part of it. He 
knew there was a woman in that city who loved him, 
who always had loved him. He dismissed all thought 
of her. 

He left New York for Chicago. He went to San 
Francisco; then, by the middle of June, he turned about 
and set out for a long sail upon the seas. Like a mag- 
net that draws fine steel, he headed for the great un- 
known. In mid-summer he found his way to the humble 
home of a friend. 

Had an apparition from the unknown world stood in 
that arched doorway, with its sunken tread of stone, it 
would have caused less sensation than did the appear- 
ance of John Coleen at the humble home of Father 
Jarenski. 

Theresa sprang up, making a noise like that of a 
clucking old hen. Father Jarenski stood rooted to the 
spot. Quickly realizing he was not dreaming he took 
the hand that Coleen offered, then embraced him with 
both arms and kissed him a hearty welcome, a form of 
welcome so common yet so meaning among the Polish. 

How wretchedly poor they were! Poverty stared at 
Coleen from all sides of the old home, the property of 
the Jarenskis’ for many, many years. The humble board, 
uncovered, set with the rudest dishes, plainest of food 
and a scarcity of that, bespoke eloquently of two pre- 
cious old people, merely existing until the final call. 


234 


ANOTHER TURN 


Theresa could not converse with Coleen. She had 
been dull and stupid at all times on account of the un- 
familiar language she heard in America, though Coleen 
learned that she could talk 1 with any person in Lodz, 
where there was no native tongue, but a mixture of 
Russian, Dutch and even French, many, many different 
nationalities, and each, it seemed, speaking differently. 
But her brother interpreted for her. She listened at- 
tentively. She was pleased; yet she showed that 
woman’s pride that knew the great difference between 
her home and the one she knew Coleen owned in 
America. 

“Tell him,” she spoke to her brother, “that he will fare 
poorly here; but no person is more welcome.” Father 
Jarenski repeated what she had spoken. “You see she 
is just like a woman, and must refer to this plain home. 
But I’m perfectly satisfied, John. And when I think of 
my noble father, my spirit mother and the best of 
ancient and almost forgotten grandsires, I know the 
house has sheltered finer men than myself, so welcome, 
welcome, a million times. And you can rest upon my 
bed.” 

Coleen was pleased. It made his heart glad. If 
the house was poverty stricken, at least it was clean and 
without was a garden that made a riot of color, blazing 
in the hot sunshine. 

“ ’Tis glorious,” he said, pointing at the sea of bloom 
before him. “You often told me; but I could not 
believe it. And never have I seen more beautiful 
flowers.” 

“We are fortunate in having this small court. Not 
many have been so fortunate. And we bought it, or 
my great grandparents purchased it almost a foot at 
a time. Strange is it not? But so terribly has this 
little province been oppressed that I wonder there is 


ANOTHER TURN 


235 


one man with a place to lay his head. So many wars, 
so much struggle for supremacy, so much bitter conten- 
tion for power, merely to feel the pleasure of crushing 
humanity with an iron heel. I wonder, oh, how I 
wonder what joy it gives those who spend their lives 
to obtain what they can’t take with them?” 

That night, stretched out on the flat, cool mat, surely 
the best bed in the house, Coleen went to sleep. It was 
the calmest rest he had known for many months. He 
slept throughout the night and was ready to learn of 
life in the strange country as soon as he was up and 
dressed. The early dawn showed more plainly than ever 
how destitute were his host and hostess. 

“Thank God, I came,” he thought'. “Now I have a 
mission and I can make them so happy.” 

Each day Coleen and Father Jarenski took long walks. 
There were times when he ventured alone, because of 
the frail health that kept the aged priest at home. To 
Coleen it was wonderful to listen to the interesting 
stories. Often they were humorous, for Father Jarenski 
had a most retentive memory and, now in his old age, 
living in the past, his boyhood days loomed gloriously 
before him. He told of escapades, many of which Coleen 
felt belied the nature of the grand old man. At best 
he had been all boy. He chuckled over many a narra- 
tive, and when Theresa saw them, looking more than 
stupid, her brother would tell her why they were laugh- 
ing; then she would remember, laugh too, and tell 
him to narrate some other humorous incident. 

There were times when Coleen went forth with just 
one purpose. He came back with many wonderful 
packages. There were many mysterious trips. Again he 
would slip money under Theresa’s bowl, and while that 
good woman would return it, she always became its 
owner and this, she, poor soul, hid, keeping it against 


236 


ANOTHER TURN 


the storm that might break when, alas, she feared they 
would fare less frugally. 

“Tell your sister to spend the money,” Coleen said. 
“Father Jarenski, I may as well tell you; but you and 
Theresa are now my children, and just now I am in the 
mood. I shall not leave you until your home is made 
more comfortable for you. Being absent from it so 
long it naturally needs repair. I’ll have it done for you.” 

“But — ” 

“No interruptions. I don’t propose to put any 
glass windows in any cathedral as a memorial to the 
best woman that ever lived; but I am going to make 
your last days easy and I do it for the memory of my 
dear Julia. Don’t stop me. I have had everything 
stopped in my life. I’m living again. I do want 
to do this. I can relieve that tension in your life, and 
I hope to do even more — to save Theresa’s eyesight 
if she will consent to the necessary operation. It can 
be done, then your lowering shadow will be lifted.” 

“Then God is good,” whispered the old man. “How 
can I tell her the glorious news? We have a small 
pension, oh, so small ; but it would keep us while 
we live, provided I live the longest; for it is mine and 
ceases with my life.” 

“That will be different too. I’ll see to that. You 
won’t want much and when you need it, you will be able 
to get it. The way you toiled and struggled for your 
people, the sacrifices you made, and, honestly, Father 
Jarenski, you were the poorest business man, gave every- 
thing away, and went without yourself. Call it the 
religious spirit if you want to; but I have discovered 
that old age has very little consolation or comfort even 
in prayer when the day brings nothing new and digs 
deeper into what a man has. I’ve seen too much of 
that in America. Thousands of old men and women 


ANOTHER TURN 


237 


are tottering on the eve of eternity, living in charitable 
homes with children going to visit them, riding in 
automobiles.” 

“I know. I know. Life is going on at a furious 
pace in America. I believe that Pandora who was sent 
to earth with her mysterious box containing all the ills 
which flesh is heir to, certainly went first to America, 
there to leave her goodly store of covetousness. It is 
her malady.” 

Coleen did not dispute the remark. He had wan- 
dered far that day, frequently speaking with persons 
in what language he knew, for he had picked up quite 
a lot of different lingo at Garthage. “Why don’t they 
understand me?” he asked that night. “I’ve talked to 
the grandchildren of old John Sobieski, some of the 
offspring of the veteran Russian General Suwaroff, run 
into youthful fellows who look like modern Kosciuscos 
but I don’t think any two of them speak the same 
language. I even looked for someone to tell me about 
Napoleon making his Moscow campaign; but,” smiling, 
“it’s worse than little Garthage when I first struck it. 
Why don’t you all talk Polish and be done with it?” 

“It might be a good idea; especially when not many 
men or women can read or write. We are sufficiently 
brilliant, yet extremely dull in a scholastic way. Queer 
old world!” 

One evening Coleen was walking slowly homeward. 
Before him was a young boy beating a beautiful dog. 
The dog lowered his body until the hairy belly touched 
the ground, yet he did not flinch. An ugly scar, drip- 
ping blood showed on the temple. 

That crimson streak on the temple ! 

Coleen leaped at the boy, clutched the stick from 
him and held it menancingly over the sullen youth. 
‘You little devil,” he yelled. “I’d like to pound you 


238 


ANOTHER TURN 


that way.” But the boy did not understand a word, 
only the angry gesture. He backed away, scowling and 
several boys came up, looked at the dog, then at Coleen 
and seemed surprised that a foreigner should be express- 
ing so much sympathy for a lean, half-starved dog. 

The animal still cowed to the earth. The blood trick- 
led down its face, making red the beautiful white hair 
that fell like white curls over the glorious neck. 

“You beauty! Your poor starved, abused dog.” 
Coleen who loved a dog, cajoled this one to its feet; 
but, even then, the dog looked backward, seemingly, 
for the brute who had been his master. 

“Come on,” coaxed Coleen. “If you can’t live here, 
you can in America. I own you now.” 

The dog followed him. True he was starved. The 
great frame seemed to be only a mass of bone cov- 
ered with a lovely hide that was not its own, but belong- 
ing to a larger dog. The pitiful wreck! Coleen kept 
his promise for he took the dog home with him. 

Well fed, housed, his bruises washed and tended, 
the dog lay contentedly in the sunshine. He realized 
there was a new master. That night Coleen felt the cold 
nose of the dog against his warm hand that lay on 
the side of the bed. “Brutus,” he whispered, “I’m 
here. You can’t get rid of me.” The dog stood by 
him for several minutes, then sank to the floor and 
slept the only comfortable sleep he had known for 
many a day. When his master found him the next 
day, the dog came up to him, leaning heavily against 
him, seemingly still asking for the same protection. 
Coleen felt that, in all the whole wide world this was 
all he really owned. His right hand caressed one of 
the white silky ears. “You beauty,” he whispered, “I 
suppose I’ll love you and lose you.” 

He looked at the ugly scar. The terrible reminder. 


ANOTHER TURN 239 

Was that why tears came into eyes that had been 
dry and painful as the heart of the Great Sahara? 

It is when men can’t weep they suffer the most. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

FOREIGN EVENTS 

W HILE the titanic scuffle was going on in Garthage 
to keep the nation from having its pockets picked 
by the unscrupulous, Coleen was in Lodz, a very sick man. 

He awoke in a dazed way, gazed at a picture before 
him, a girl — or was she a woman?' — sitting on a low 
chair with its four squatty legs spread far apart. Her 
head was leaning slightly toward the left shoulder, 
for she was asleep, and while the old chair was a 
dull, ugly brown, back of it was an open window, 
filled with glorious sunshine, forming a silver back- 
ground to the fair vision of a woman who might be 
twenty-four years old, though her appearance belied it. 
The small head, covered with golden curls, a type of 
the fair Polish women, was partially hidden by a hand- 
kerchief, white and yellow, that was not ungracefully 
wrapped around her head and knotted back of the 
left ear. The face was faultless, and the pink of her 
cheeks and lips reminded Coleen not of flowers, but 
of that wax-like pinkness he had seen in candles, not 
the prettiest comparison unless you study that particular 
pink which is most beautiful in the colored candle. 
The mouth was infantile in outline, as were the small 
white hands; yet the figure was quite matronly and the 
white kerchief crossed over the bosom of a yellow frock, 
billowed softly over the fullness beneath. Health, beauty, 
witchery presented themselves in the picture, making 
most glorious the rude wooden window which was 
nothing but a square hole in the wall which closed at night 
with a wooden shutter that was bound together with 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


241 


strips of rusty iron. Yet, in every respect it formed 
a frame for this picture which no artist could paint, 
for here was indeed the embodiment of all that was 
perfection and where cheap colored cotton graced a hum- 
ble woman’s lovely form as no satin would bedeck 
the queen elect. A shadow passed over the window 
and instantly darkened the glorious hair, when it shone 
just a trifle reddish. Coleen who greatly admired 
the auburn type of beauty was wondering if this head 
of hair was golden or red when he saw Father Jarenski 
coming in at the door. 

“You have been very sick, John,” he said, laying his 
big cool hand on the sick man’s forehead. “Nature 
has made you pay toll for your hard work in Garthage 
the past few years and for your recent trouble. We,” 
nodding toward the girl who was prettily yawning 
herself awake, “have done our best for you. Katrina 
is her name, and while she cannot understand a word 
you say, yet she is clever and we shall get along nicely.” 

“Who is she?” asked Coleen. 

But Father Jarenski did not answer, possibly not 
having heard the inquiry. The girl looked at her patient. 
Plainly she was a nurse. She smiled pleasantly and the 
parted lips were almost babyish in forming the whim- 
sical smile. She left the room, followed by Brutus. 
Coleen could not believe that he had been sick for some 
days. Even Brutus had rounded out beautifully, showing 
what good food and kindness will do for the canine 
member of one’s family. 

When the girl came into the room, softly as the 
very shadows, she carried a blue bowl, certainly not 
the rude earthenware used in the priest’s humble home; 
but a china bowl as light as paper, clear and unquestion- 
ably a valuable article. In it was some soup. Coleen 
despised soup. His taste was gone which was fortunate 


242 


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perhaps, for how could he refuse anything from that 
Dresden bowl poised by hands that were dreams 
of beauty? Even the spoon was an unfamiliar object. 
The long delicate handle was dull silver filigree, the 
bowl a shining silver of delicate shape. How an American 
woman would rave over this spoon ! He sipped the 
soup which he did not want. He took everything she 
offered. Once he looked at the soup and said, “soup.” 
She looked perplexed. Father Jarenski interpreted for 
them. “Tell her I shall teach her certain words and 
she can teach me.” He wanted so much to converse 
with her. 

Later in the week she knew the names of soap, towel, 
comb and familiar objects in his room. Many laugh- 
able mistakes were made, as when she gave him broth, 
calling it a towel. She learned rapidly, always taking 
delight in saying something in the English language. 
Coleen could talk Polish, but not fluently and he always 
yelled which made it seem very funny to his nurse. 

Theresa was still in the great hospital. This was 
why the nurse was called in attendance to care for 
Coleen. Yes, Theresa was doing very nicely, the cata- 
racts were removed; but she had undergone a severe 
shock, owing to her age, and while she was recovering, 
yet she was not able to return home and her eyes were 
bandaged. 

“It is too bad,” Coleen said to Father Jarenski, “to 
think I came here and took sick. Only twice in my life- 
time have I needed a nurse and each time it has been 
under your roof.” 

Coleen was thinking of the nurse. Here was a girl, 
a jewel. It was too bad that, young as she was and 
so beautiful, that she could not be properly educated 
and rise to her true niche in the world. As it was, she 
was like a wonderful diamond in a brass setting, and 


FOREIGN EVENTS 243 

she could be a clear gem in platinum. It struck his 
fancy that here was a girl, if Americanized, who would 
suit Swearengen. How that chap would love this beauty. 
And how he would resent having his best friend select 
a Polish maid for his wife ! But, of course, Swearengen 
did not know. He was never to know; for that chap 
had already wedded. Coleen knew it later in the day, 
when he opened his foreign mail and found not only 
engraved invitation, “At Home” cards but, best of all, 
a cartoon, cut from his own paper, entitled, “Lohengrin, 
Sweep Out Padded Cell, 7,863.” It showed Cupid 
hook Swearengen from his desk with a photograph of 
his bride appearing in the smoke of his cigar, and an 
open door leading into the matrimonial ward. Coleen 
laughed. How glad he was. There was a chap worth 
while and he was glad the bride had considered Swear- 
engen’s fifteenth application to be her husband. It was 
the only girl and of course she was a type of the South- 
ern maid. “I wonder how she’ll like Garthage?” Then 
Coleen opened his letter from Zilki. It was huge. It 
contained clippings and also a letter from Tony which 
had to be interpreted. But it told of a brand new baby 
brother and while the baby had no hair and not a 
tooth, couldn’t talk, walk, or play, yet Tony liked it 
very much, only he had traded it off to Holmes for a 
dime’s worth of peanuts. It was good news, every- 
thing was good. He would soon return to them. But, 
and his old sorrow returned, “Dear God, to what do I 
return !” he wondered. 

One thing was good news to the editor, he learned 
that Garthage was “Getting the Habit,” that a sort of 
savage delight in doing as they pleased with the com- 
munity’s money had reverted to usefulness. He told 
as much to the priest. 

“My boy,” answered the priest, who frequently ad- 


244 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


dressed him as a boy, “you can see the use of it. Look 
around us here in Lodz. True, Lodz does prosper in 
a way; but what way? Only where there are persons to 
conduct business and do it intelligently and system- 
atically. Cupidity takes the place of intelligence in 
many business houses. Graft is a ruling passion. Here 
we have the honest Jew and the unprincipled Jew, the 
thrifty German and the dull German, educated and 
unenlightened. Not one man in fifteen can read or write. 
The Polish are like all others; yet, go where I will, 
do what I will, I see the same hand of oppression here 
that you encountered in America. How will it end? 
God only knows. With business in this state, with so 
much illiteracy, it looks as if we were in herds. I pre- 
dict and always have, that this will again be a great 
and terrible battle field. I have sensed it for years. It 
is brewing. You can tell it and warn the people, but 
they’ll do nothing until it falls upon them in the night. 
It will be like wolves in the fold. How can unen- 
lightened men act intelligently when this will occur? 
They will follow a leader, though that leader takes them 
right into the jaws of death. Poor stricken Poland, 
I know its fate. I’m a coward, too, Coleen, when I 
think of what we may expect; for I know how useless I 
shall be, and I hope my time comes before I see the 
carnage which, ere many years, will strip this country 
to the bone. It is coming. Remember that!” 

The old tale again, in a way, of America, a country 
swollen with riches; everlastingly reaching out for more. 
A bloated servitor of the Great Finance could sit at a 
desk and control the wheat market, the most necessary 
commodity of the nation, making his sixty thousand 
or even his million in a few days, sometimes in a few 
hours, and the poor public paying the price of his 
cupidity, a lawless trick, upheld by the very President, 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


245 


his cabinet, and all office holders headed the same way. 
No chance on earth to break up the political ring that 
permitted this tax on the public. No instinct among the 
herd to offset it. No economic program. Rolling in 
riches were countless concerns, like the mail-order houses 
that' sat back and laid hands upon officers who dared to 
squirm against anything the mail-order concerns wished 
to do and were going to do. What was the moral? 
There was none. A vigorous stock boom was not and 
never has been a criminal offense. Somehow or other 
it is greeted with applause when a man grows suddenly 
rich and countless others go down in the whirlpool of 
bad business ventures. The ticker argues nothing for 
the little fellow with the plow, the lawn mower, the 
hammer and hatchet. It ignores the chap with the 
trowel, the spade or the scythe. It is a single business 
concern in America and if you are not in “the ring” 
you are without; to be without you can’t promote vast 
trade activities where political factions have any sway 
against the best formulated plans ever conceived by the 
brain of man, with honesty at the helm ! But the tables 
were turning. 

Now deny it if you can. 

Coleen was glad when his nurse returned to him, 
bringing in a small dish filled with ice, a sort of cool, 
limelike sourness frozen into miniature balls. It tasted 
deliciously and he loved to watch her gathering up the 
frozen balls on the silver spoon. He might have fed 
himself now, for he was gaining strength; but she evi- 
dently wished to hold her office. 

One day she came in carrying a lusty-looking infant. 
It was crying as only a very cross baby can cry. She 
perked it up, shook it easily, like a feather pillow, 
then screamed at its funny antics. 

“It’s her baby,” explained Father Jarenski. “Oh, yes, 


246 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


Katrina is married. I thought I told you. She says to 
tell you that Josef is quite human, though she knows 
you can’t see anything but the ruffle on his cap and his 
esophagus !” 

“Tell her he is a dear” Coleen said it enthusiastically; 
yet something like a quick shadow fell on his heart. His 
wonderful Polish nurse was married ! He wondered who 
was the lucky man. But that was to be answered 
without asking. 

“Katrina is married to a young deputy. He is a 
fine fellow, only, like many of our men, he drinks to 
excess; but she does not seem to care. Such love, 
such devotion, such wonderful pots of noodle soup. She 
will live it all right for a time ; but her romance will fade 
about the time that the third baby comes and her hus- 
band hasn’t reformed. Yes, she is a beauty, so was 
her mother. That mother has thirteen children. They 
are unmercifully poor; but you never saw handsomer 
children than hers in America. 

“I’m honest about it, I think I never saw any woman 
so beautiful in America, though I have seen some of our 
famous beauties. It isn’t exactly her beauty, either; 
but something of that great big bigness about her. Why 
can’t a man appreciate anything like her?” 

“I do not know,” answered his listener. “I saw her 
mother only yesterday. Her figure is gone and I saw 
silver creeping into her golden locks, just the color of 
Katrina’s. I do think that Love has eyes for these 
signs in a woman, the hallmarks of time, despite the 
fact that she was true and patient throughout the years. 
All that her heart could give was given to her husband 
and the children they had. She served; smiled through 
some great privations, always it seems prior to the birth 
of a child ; scrimped without being able to save, measured 
her needs with his capacities, gleaned happiness from her 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


247 


babies, found rainbows in black skies and lived to be 
a faded creature, unloved by her man; but to man’s 
memory of woman, I say she is always the best, there- 
fore the loveliest of women in all the world!” 

“Father Jarenski, you were an old dunce not to get 
married!” Coleen laughed heartily as he said it. 

“Well, John, sometimes I thought that myself. I have 
tried to save souls, not make them.” 

“You might have been engaged in both,” retorted 
Coleen. “I have looked at you a thousand times, 
thinking how some woman could have worshipped you 
for your physical and mental loveliness, and I have pic- 
tured you out in the world, far, far from the priesthood. 
I have all reverence for your profession and I know 
you don’t despair. But, honestly, did it pay?” 

“Pay? A million times yes! I have mounted lofty 
places and have gone to terrible depths; but, if I could 
make my choice over, having done what I have, and 
gaining so little for myself, I’d go along, bearing my yoke. 
It was a labor of love, not of sacrifice. All that I can see 
in it that has the least tinge of regret, comes to an old 
man like me who is nearing the grave, as somehow 
or other a man would like to lay his head on a good 
woman’s breast when he closes his eyes. I think of 
my mother, a saint in Heaven, and I want her. I 
want no other. We men have many ideas of women. I 
have been in a position to know the heart and soul of 
womankind and, John, I haven’t missed much. With 
all regard to womankind and my angel mother, even 
patient old Theresa, I must admit that women don’t 
measure up to man’s holy expectations; and goodness 
only knows to what depths we sink in the women’s 
estimation ; but I dare say to bottomless depths. Human- 
ity is a failure in so many respects, that I’m not sorry 
that I let my life drift along without an eternal war- 


248 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


fare with myself and some woman to find but fleeting 
happiness in this world. Life goes by swift machinery 
now. Conditions are worse. No young man dare ask 
a woman to accept what his mother started with; for 
she won’t take the modern pace. Katrina has; but she 
will be tired to death of it in less than a year.” 

Coleen meditated that this might be true. Here was 
a girl of the humblest peasantry, yet big in her womanly 
way, and there were some men who would worship at 
her shrine of beauty and die of eternal regrets. She 
belonged soul, body and all to a young man who possi- 
bly admired her physical beauty. He thought nothing 
of the sorrow he might cause her by not being true to 
himself. In time she would drift along as did her 
mother, looking with blistered eyes from a humble 
doorway for the sight of a mere man who had been 
basking his old age in the smiles of a paid siren ! And 
of this, Hell offers nothing so tortuous as love grown 
old and replaced with something worse than death, 
knowing that time will not alter it, but will only increase 
its torment until the fuel of desire is burned to a white 
ash, flickers in a flame, then goes out. 

And this is love ! 

It took his thoughts back to Natalie. He had loved 
her at a moment in his life when an aching void accepted 
her. The very love that blossomed all too soon and 
perished at once was something he recalled with sorrow. 
He was very sorry the record of his own misdeed was 
on his own book of life. It did not make the embers 
burst into flame. He saw the gray, gray ash. Would 
her husband always love her? Were they very, very 
happy? Was there a child? He thought of some- 
thing she had given to him, a miniature marble bust of 
himself, true in delicate outline and colored by a master’s 
touch. It was work done by an Italian sculptor in Gar- 


FOREIGN EVENTS 249 

thage, a man who has since found fame and fortune 
making those little images for mere pastime in Garthage. 
He had been a gardener on her father’s farm and she 
found him clipping wonderful rose baskets from fine 
white soap. He had hidden them and was frightened 
when caught in the act. He loved to do it, was his 
explanation. His father and grandfather made the 
beautiful work that was sold for use in fine cathedrals. 
It was then she purchased him the proper materials 
and set him to work making delicate ware for her 
art cabinet. She suggested the miniature head of John 
Coleen to be done in marble. Completed, she did not 
like the ghastly clear whiteness of it; then it was 
tinted, the flesh colors blending to a delicate and natural 
tan with the pinkish flush of youth on his checks. A va- 
grant strand of hair swept down the middle of his fore- 
head. The powerful shoulders held the studious head in a 
slightly bowed position. It was natural as life; yet no 
person had seen it. “That,” said she, as she handed 
him the gift, “looks just like you the day you said 
to me, ‘Natalie, if ever the time comes to make good 
with you I will/ only I meant it for a studious pose, 
as you sit at your desk, thinking of great problems.” 

It was hidden away. Not for anything would he take 
it from its sacred wrapping in the box. He had never 
accepted her idea of its beauty. It was his soul carved 
in marble, against everything fine and divine in him 
that could never make good. And — he wished he could. 
Vim, vigor and victory are great things in a man’s life; 
but how often they are unsought when pretty lips woo 
a man into a labyrinth of love, desire and endless trouble! 
Natalie was the fire that burned, scorched, consumed. 
She was color, light, heat, music, song, magic and desire. 
Julia was contentment, satisfaction, glorious and noble 
womanhood. Of the two women, the wife was the 


250 


FOREIGN EVENTS 


finer woman; but even the memory of her did not efface 
what had occurred when Coleen met Natalie that day 
in the woods and the world took up the echo of hearts 
when a bow was touched to the silvery cords of a fine 
violin. The music belonged to the spheres, and he knew 
it, but would not recognize it. 

Outside he heard the curfew bells. Evening descended. 
Had he been able, he would have gone out to see the 
sunset over the garden of scarlet flowers. Katrina came 
in, laughing and tugging at a man’s coat tail. 

Coleen knew the man was Katrina’s husband. The 
big, shy fellow, sunburned, towsled headed, good to 
look upon, spoke and shook hands. He was a likable 
man and as sober as a judge in a criminal court; but 
he was awkwardly uneasy in the presence of the strange 
man and showed a gladness to make his escape. Katrina 
shooed him out' with her white apron, made a curtsey, 
blew him a kiss from her white fingers, then turned her 
smiling face away. 

The following Saturday her services were over. She 
took her fortune with her. How liberal had been the 
good American! Her husband thought likewise, for 
that night he came home as drunk as a fly from a cotton 
gin of Mississippi. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

C OLEEN read his personal letters, then turned to some 
home newspapers, selecting one of his own papers, 
possibly from habit. He had not read many pages of 
current news without resenting some of the articles. In 
a way they were all right; again it struck him that his 
editor-in-chief was soldiering on him. The paper had that 
disreputable appearance of the advertising sheet, “Dic- 
tated, but not read.” 

He said as much to Father Jarenski, handing him 
the paper. 

“Can you understand any business that will permit 
anything going from the main office like the letter 
that is signed with a rubber stamp and bearing the 
insulting remark that it was dictated but not read? It 
may pertain to some rush matter ; but who on earth wants 
to do business with a concern that is too busy to look 
after its private or business correspondence? I know 
my paper needs its personal touch. When I get back 
home I shall give Weatherby a try at the editor-in-chief 
job. I don’t like this machine correspondence chill in 
any paper I put out. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t 
want to go home. I feel as if I were coming out of an 
October Indian haze. I want to feel clear headed when 
I go back.” 

Again he turned to his paper. One item was inter- 
esting. His oil wells were promising, two were real 
gushers; but — and he frowned, on one oil field he was 
blocked by the enterprising Cansby. 

“Pretty good play,” he explained to the priest. “He 


252 DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

did exactly what I did to him and I guess we both 
have land tied up for our heirs unless we both come 
across and let down the bars. I thought I was very 
clever and had options and the like to give me a good 
outlet ; but I see he has me blocked. He hasn’t done 
a thing I didn’t do myself, only I meant it as a tem- 
porary affair. Cansby is shrewed, isn’t he?” 

“I don’t think so,” answered the priest. “He is a 
sort of selling campaign in my eyes. He reminds me 
of a man going around with somebody’s personality 
on for a cloak. I never understood Mr. Cansby. You 
know when a man has a lot of stores such as he has 
and when you write into any of the houses and get 
a reply from no person in particular, and must try 
to hunt out a personality within it, and don’t find him, 
I can easily surmise that something is wrong. Cansby 
started out all right, I understand; but as soon as his 
store doors became a gateway to bigger money, he 
bestowed on executives the authority to go ahead and 
when anything goes wrong, you simply can’t trace the 
culprit.” 

“A sort of a mail-order snag,” Coleen remarked. 

“On that order, and, I suppose, a most important 
one for Mr. Cansby. It’s queer how things go in 
America.” 

“I always felt that Cansby resented my going to 
Garthage,” Coleen remarked. “For a time he met me 
kindly and graciously. But I was not there very long 
until I saw through the veneered friendship. I have 
wondered many, many times if he had anything to do 
with that murderous attack on me.” 

“O, I never thought that,” said the priest. “I never 
did think so. That was an affair hatched among the 
saloon-keepers or some of the men who resented some- 
thing you did. I had several clues, followed them up, 


253 


DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

always without success. When idle men get to enjoying 
imaginative comparisons, then is when mischief is brew- 
ing. The man who courts it is a trouble breeder. I expect 
Mr. Cansby has some good qualities; but they won’t 
leak out this year.” 

Coleen turned to other papers. Nothing important 
was chronicled. He saw a feeble attempt to strike at the 
mail-order trouble; but it was neither strong nor con- 
vincing. And he wondered why. Evidently the writers 
were not afraid of going ahead so long as the animals 
were caged! The biggest fight was between manufac- 
turer and wholesaler. That would of course result in 
some sort of political tiff at Washington. A bill would 
be introduced to make the manufacturer respect the 
wholesaler. “And if it ever comes to pass,” thought 
Coleen, “it will be the beginning of our business Mil- 
lennium.” 

He went for a walk. Beautiful indeed were many 
of the small gardens. He noticed the glorious flowers 
that blossomed in many parts of the city where there 
was a sign of life and uplift. Later he got into a 
section of the town that made his very heart ache. Here, 
no doubt, were men, women and children, doomed to 
servitude, poor living conditions, certainly nothing prom- 
ising and surely nothing healthy. It was the old story 
of poverty, want, sin, everlasting degradation without the 
hope of escape. There was not enough work for all. 
He had seen something similiar down South in America 
where negroes lined up at the wharves or at the oyster 
beds, getting perhaps a few hours’ work, when they were 
dismissed and others were given labor ; but this was the 
bosses’ idea of securing efficiency among the negroes, 
who would get lazy on regular days’ labor. 

It was strange, too, in this sooty, sodden, ugly part 
of the town that his idle thoughts traveled back to a 


254 DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

town in Ohio. It is worth repeating in the writer’s own 
language, since it is true and was the picture presented 
to Coleen. 

In one of the ugliest towns in Ohio were many 
families living in the ugly wild of its unkept condition. 
There were several railroads through the place, veining 
the section with its miles and miles of ties. The houses 
were ugly. The place was run down and wholly unkept. 
The only decent walking place was on the railroad itself. 
There one escaped mud or the ash sidewalks. One day a 
terrible wreck occurred on the railroad right in the center 
of the town. So great was the disaster that no attempt 
was made to save much of the wreckage. In that 
wreck was a large consignment of flower seeds. Of course 
no person saved them and the wild winds that blew 
through that section of the country in early spring scat- 
tered the seeds broadcast. The result was a flowery king- 
dom. Flowers grew by the railroad track, on hillsides, 
in gardens, everywhere where no flower had ever graced 
the soil. Hearts gladdened at the sight. The unusual 
beauty of the innocent flowers, surely a gift of God, 
if you want to accept it that way, brought something 
lovely into their lives. There was an attempt to save 
the flowers. It created a new desire to beautify their 
surroundings. Only flowers, just the ordinary garden 
kind; but a God-given factor strewn by a railroad 
wreck, another evidence of that Biblical statement that 
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. 
And the old town blossomed and still blossoms with the 
germs of little flower seeds. 

Coleen recalled this story. It wasn’t a posy of speech. 
It was a reality. And he almost wished for a wreck of 
something in low Lodz where there were so many dis- 
tressing signs of ruin and decay. 

More and more could he realize just why Father 


255 


DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

Jarenski had given his life to the priesthood. Wise even 
in his youth, he had drawn a fine conclusion, that oppres- 
sion on every hand meant ignorance and poverty. He fol- 
lowed up his weaklings. He went with them to America. 
They had distorted ideas of America and its ways. What 
he had accomplished, he was never to know; but he 
had the assurance of doing much good where, probably, 
an alien leader would have been less successful. Cer- 
tainly it was not for earthly gain. He had gained noth- 
ing. He had gone along with the great human tide. 
His ending days might have been cruelly severe; for he 
made noble sacrifices; but, thanks to Coleen, he would 
protect the grand old man in his last years, but wisely 
and in a manner that would insure personal benefit for 
the priest and his sister. He had arranged that part 
of his affairs with a banking house. It did not mean 
riches one day and poverty the next; but an even- 
ness that could not be overstepped and certainly not 
squandered; for he knew as well as anything that the 
priest would give his last cent to the needy if he thought 
it necessary to give it. And Coleen having sensed the 
childhood in the old man, was wise enough not to leave 
a loophole for this generous impulse on the part of one 
who never thought of self. 

“Time to look after yourself,” explained Coleen after 
giving him certain papers. “If Theresa outlives you, it 
is arranged for her future; if you are left alone, you 
can keep a servant.” 

Chaos of thought and action occurred everywhere, 
and it pursued Coleen wherever he went. Why couldn’t 
rational action be followed each day? With him it 
never had. His very actions took up battle with each 
other. One day his mind was strong and philosophical ; 
the next day his vagrant thoughts abused the medita- 
tion of the day before. His mind worked systematic- 


256 DICTATED, BUT NOT READ 

ally at times, and at such times he tried to transact 
his business, never relying on the weakness that he 
sometimes felt. He did not know that all men and all 
women have these same mental conditions. He felt it to 
be a sort of personal weakness ; but all men and all women 
do have these lapses, and when they again corral their 
mental faculties, they hope to keep them together. Too 
many are like the letters that are dictated, but not read. 


CHAPTER XXIX 

A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


L ODZ, after all, offered its amusements and also was 
a it the scene of unusual pleasantries, especially so 
when there was a wedding to celebrate, which happened 
shortly after Coleen’s complete recovery and to which 
he was invited by Katrina and her husband. 

“You must go,” urged Father Jarenski. “It will be a 
most unusual sight for you and while it will not be 
stylish nevertheless it will be something you will enjoy. 
The bride and groom are prominent here and I dare 
say this will be one of the old-fashioned affairs. You 
know they dance the whole night through. Dancing 
continues until they all are exhausted and no more 
merry making gives pleasure. Tis an old custom, quite 
old, and I have known these celebrations to last three 
and four days.” 

“Where is this to be?” Coleen asked. “You know I 
can’t understand them.” 

“It will be in the woods. You don’t have to under- 
stand them. Katrina will see that you have a pleasant 
evening and I dare say her husband will return with you 
at midnight. I shall tell her you must be here by that 
time; for you will have had enough of it by that time.” 

In the evening Katrina came with her husband. She 
was dressed in a frock of purple with bands of white as a 
trimming. Over her head was draped a thin mauve veil, 
perhaps yards and yards of it, filmy like a cloud where the 
loose ends fluttered at the back of her head. Had the dress 
been the same material the picture of this Polish matron 
would have been complete. However, her dress was severe- 


258 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


ly stiff, almost as smooth as the china bowl she had used 
to hold Coleen’s soup. Its bodice was full, severe in out- 
line, the skirt ample, revealing beneath it a garish green 
petticoat, also an inner ruffle of red ! It was a clash of 
color, yet exactly what suited the fair one. Her arms were 
partially covered, full of bracelets, cheap jewelry, and 
her fingers glistened with coral snakes, the green eyes 
hissing at you — or, at least, so they appeared. 

Coleen felt that he was looking at an old masterpiece 
as he descended into the deep of the woods with his two 
escorts. The path wandered through old trees, certainly 
centuries old and by stunted bracken, some of it peculiar- 
ly rich in shades of green and purple. No doubt these 
very trees had echoed the sound of war’s reverberation in 
years gone by, for their immense size certainly bespoke it. 
They came to a loitering stream over which they passed 
on a small bridge made of something like barrel staves, 
loosely joined with wire, each separated by the width of a 
stave, and all left to swing idly like a hammock! Coleen 
was glad the stream was narrow ; yet everyone crossed the 
bridge with unconcern ; for was it not the kind they used 
at all times. “And why?” Open as they were, like ladders 
with wide rungs, they resisted flood waters and often re- 
mained in place where heavier structures were swept a- 
long with the tide they resisted. There were glimpses of 
flowers, gay terraces, lighted and presentable, not unlike 
some pleasure grounds in America. The dancing hall 
was ancient. It might be mistaken for some immense 
herding shelter, for it was extremely rude. The pillars 
were ivy clad, many of them luxuriant in foliage that Na- 
ture taught to grow there. The squatty roof was broken 
in places, sadly in need of repair. Lichen clung to every 
board. The bare floor was patted to a smoothness one 
finds in marble. Lights flickered in rude torches, made 
of candles and, possibly it was some sort of green bark 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 259 

they used for holders. Several youths replenished the 
lights as they melted down. 

There were hundreds of guests, all dressed very much 
as was Katrina. Coleen noted the sturdy, fine-looking 
men there were. He was honest in thinking the men 
were far handsomer than the women. It wasn’t wholly 
the gaudy dress that gave him the idea, for he rather ad- 
mired the native costume; but there was something com- 
manding in the better type of Polander that Coleen often 
missed on his own streets in America. It was the figure 
of a soldier, a fighter, a ruler. But, back of it was some- 
thing missing, and he believed it was — opportunity. 

Then came the bride and groom, another handsome 
man, full of joy, smiles and a desire to please everyone, a 
striking figure of youth and manhood. His bride was 
small, swarthy, most unlovely with a frog mouth, color- 
less eyes and a fullness of figure that made her appear 
like a puff of down. Her immense veil was extreme in 
width. The veil was wonderful in texture. Everything 
indicated the best obtainable; but Coleen happened to 
look at the bride’s feet. Impossible ! No man of refined 
taste could look at those ugly feet and be pleased with the 
bride. Feet are &n index to the female character, and 
Coleen knew it. 

In his heart he wondered just what that fine-looking 
Polander saw attractive in the bride. Then he recalled 
the great number of men he knew in America who have 
the homeliest wives he could imagine. “It’s the charm, 
the money, or the something,” he told himself, being 
placed in a position where he could not ask a reason, and 
would not if he could. 

The weird music began. It wasn’t music and yet it 
was harmony. Dancers took their places, mostly the 
very young, and bodies swayed, dipped, sprung apart, 
then together, meeting, separating, moving, yet not danc- 


260 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


ing. It was not without rythm, but it certainly con- 
tained nothing of the dancing spirit. He watched the 
dancers as they shuffled from place to place, wondering 
what earthly enjoyment it meant to keep up this peculiar 
muscular motion which lacked so much grace. While 
thinking this, the music changed. It was not unlike a 
waltz, but as uncanny as a yodel. In the midst of the 
merrymakers he spied his charming nurse. His eyes 
lighted with pleasure as the winsome creature pirouetted 
into view. She had caught up a garland of flowers, tossed 
them high, now low, like a child with a skipping rope. 
Other women were doing likewise, but none like Katrina. 
Men were chasing the bride to steal a kiss, and unable to 
get it, they kissed their companion. Katrina slapped a 
youth, tossed back her glorious head, struck out prettily 
with her shapely foot and fell into the arms of her rescuer, 
her husband, who planted his kiss on legitimate property. 
Like a song bird let loose, she flung herself into the fun of 
all merrymakers, and sighting Coleen, she floated up to 
him, put out both arms like a fairy from some moon- 
beam valley and cajoled him to dance with her. He shook 
his head. At home he had been a good dancer, and he 
was not certain that he was wanted as a dancer. But 
Katrina’s husband pushed him forward. There was no 
resisting either. He found himself dancing with the sprite 
of a child and her every motion was poetry and music. 
A young man, comely and mischievous, reached over from 
the embracing arms of his own fair charmer, to steal a 
kiss from Katrina. She was offering those sacred lips 
to him when Coleen pulled her to him, almost roughly, 
holding the mischievous little head against his own breast 
as if to ward off insult, injury and wrong. “Don’t let 
him!” he said, almost fiercely. She did not understand 
him; but she understood his look. Like a butterfly 
crushed in its first happy flight, she felt his meaning. 


261 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 

Quietly she walked away with him to where her mother 
was nursing the hungry little Josef. With cheeks aflame 
at the meaning of her partner, she grabbed up her baby, 
flung open the front of her dress, offering the necessary 
nourishment to the howling infant. Coleen had hurt her. 
Instinctively he felt this. She liked him and she did not 
like the way he had acted. She slipped away from him 
and danced with her husband. But the pleasure was 
gone. Her wildcap joy was no more. When her husband 
returned to Lodz to accompany Coleen back to the home 
of the priest, his wife followed, carrying the heavy child, 
and not smiling. 

The next day Coleen saw her in her own yard. She 
was lying flat on her stomach, the baby before her, sitting 
in the grass. She was tickling the little feet with a flower 
stem, and Josef was screaming with delight. When she 
saw Coleen, she turned her back on him, thought better, 
got up, and walked into her house without speaking. 

“Well, I admire your spirit, good nurse, but had I 
known you wanted the kiss that much, I might have fur- 
nished it myself.” 

When next he saw her, she was smiling radiantly. She 
was too much the sunbeam not to be happy. Maybe it 
was because she was walking with a perfect priest, Father 
Gazzi, ample and genial, with an embracing laugh and an 
enveloping voice. He had married her and he knew every 
sin of her life and could have written them ten times over 
on his little finger nail. 

The next day Coleen was invited to a home of great 
wealth and aristocracy. The invitation was extended to 
him through Father Jarenski, who was to be the guest of 
honor. They walked to the house which was not far dis- 
tant. It was a wonderful structure of light tan that 
looked as if it might be fashioned of clay or yellow soap. 
The material was not stone, neither was it cement, but 


262 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


something earthy and probably baked. The surface was 
smooth and clear. The main entrance was of immense 
height, finished not unlike a cathedral door and seemed 
to take up much of the front of the house. There was 
a circular room at the right of the entrance, extending up- 
ward to a point near the top of the house, where it sud- 
denly coiled and twisted itself into something like the 
flame of a big torch that is twisted in the wind. Four 
of these immense torches adorned the top of peculiarly 
shaped projections, rooms of course that squatted around 
the main entrance. 

Within was vastness, darkness, considerable tapestry, 
a wonderful blending of rich colors and many fine pic- 
tures, some sacred, others of a weird and peculiar signifi- 
cance, such as snakes or gnomes struggling with devils, 
half man, half animal. Their host was a business man 
with a bad case of rheumatism and a Jewish nose for 
which it is likely he could not account. His wife was a 
most gracious woman, who welcomed her guests as pleas- 
antly as one might desire, then faded into the back- 
ground of velvets, tapestries and old brasses, not to ap- 
pear until dinner was announced. 

Coleen sensed the superiority of this home. Here, no 
doubt, was wealth, education, refinement and a home 
wherein one might enjoy home life in all its strange real- 
ity. 

Before dinner was announced, Father Jarenski asked 
Coleen if he would like to see how noodles were made. It 
struck Coleen as being deliciously funny, inasmuch as he 
heartily hated anything that went into soup. “It will in- 
terest you,” he said; “for it is quite a clever trick.” 

Of course he went into the great kitchen where a 
youthful maid showed him what she had between two 
bowls. It was a mixture of flour, lard and water, raised by 
the heat of the two bowls. She turned it out on a large 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


263 


table covered with something like unbleached sheeting and 
began pulling the mass into shape. It was tough, clear, al- 
most the color of cloudy blown glass. She cut it into 
threads, so fine that the watcher wondered how her sharp 
knife played so fast and so accurately over the thin sheet 
of dough. This she turned into a huge caldron of boiling 
water, salted, then covered it. Lastly she lifted them with 
a wire ladle, threw them into ice water, drained the 
noodles and put them into an immense bowl, as large as 
an American wash bowl. The bowl was quite hot and over 
the clear noodles she poured her rich soup. 

“It was truly wonderful. I would not have missed it 
for anything.” 

“That is why you hear in America, ‘See Poland make 
her noodles!’ ” 

As he left the house his host slipped into Coleen’s hand 
a small jewelry box. He was about to open it when the 
man smilingly intimated he must not open it then. For a 
few seconds he talked with the priest, who said: “You 
must not open the box until you get home. It is to in- 
sure your safety back to America.” 

It touched him wonderfully, coming from this strange 
host, and all the way back home he was wondering just 
what it contained. He opened the box before the priest. 
On a layer of pink satin lay a small gold cross to which 
was attached a small chain as thin as is worn by a young 
debutante. 

This gift was valuable. Coleen knew that it was given 
to him because of the peculiar friendship existing between 
himself and the priest. “I wonder if it is blessed ?” 
Coleen asked whimsically. 

“If it isn’t,” said Father Jarenski, taking the gold em- 
blem into his old hands, “it will be ; and I wish to leave 
on it a kiss to go with you into eternity.” 


264 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


He raised the cross to his lips, kissed it silently and re- 
placed it in the small box. 

“Our host is satisfied with life/ > said Coleen, wishing to 
break in on the solemnity of the moment. 

“Yes, he is not deprived of work, education or oppor- 
tunity. Here, as elsewhere, we are driving our best cit- 
izens to the universities of Germany, the peace of Eng- 
land and the mercantile and educational possibilities of 
America. Our backwardness here is our stumbling block. 
Was it what you expected when you started here?” 

“I was expecting nothing. I came not for curiosity or 
gain. I felt drawn here, without any purpose in life. It 
has not been a disappointment in any respect. I shall 
remember it as one of the most remarkable events in my 
life. I shall return home next week. I see I am needed 
there, but, oh, you don’t know how I shall hate to leave 
you and how unwelcome I shall feel, returning to a place 
where I’m not really needed, where everyone could do 
without me. I must get back and work, work, work. Was 
it a weak spirit to give up as I did? I don’t want to be 
weak, purposeless nor even a good figure-head. But I 
did give in.” 

“You did nothing of the kind, John. Any man who 
knows you will know you as a tower of strength and pur- 
pose. I have found so much in you to admire, that I 
can’t say any particular weakness has assailed you. 
There was a time when I felt that a fancy might lead you 
astray. I saw you fight it down and conquer that weak- 
ness. Other men, good and true, have made more grievous 
mistakes where women are concerned; for when you 
bring certain people together and try to detach their 
affection, you are tearing souls asunder.” 

“Do you think it possible for a man to care tenderly 
for two women at the same time?” Coleen asked cau- 
tiously. 


265 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 

“Unquestionably I do ! I know of a case where one 
of our poorest men became quite wealthy. His wife was a 
peasant and a splendid woman. She was the mother of 
his children and there was not a thing in the world he did 
not do for her. As he grew in strength, power and wealth 
it took him into a totally different social atmosphere. It 
brought him in contact with women of a different type 
than his wife. He tried for years to have her cultivate 
the same social attitude. When she failed, he still loved 
her. He has often mentioned her to me as his little white 
pigeon, and I know he loved a woman in the social world. 
I fought with that man’s pride, gained nothing and finally 
gave him up as a queer subject. He was not true to his 
wife nor his family. They never knew of his perfidy. 
No tragedy occurred, no slander, and they all escaped 
trouble, though that does not often occur. He lost a 
jewel — his soul — in the transaction; but he told me he 
was willing to give ten times as many to love the two wo- 
men in the next world !” 

“You know what a scoundrel like that is in America ?” 
Coleen asked. “It is about the weakest man we have. 
He is selfish. Not being able to give, he takes. I was in 
his position too; but I certainly knew which woman I 
loved best and would defend against the whole wide 
world! I once heard a doctor say that a certain man in 
Garthage was hypnotized. His listener who knew the 
case of the other woman told the truth when he said that 
the culprit was not hypnotized, but was unquestionably 
demoralized ! ” 

“Putting it that way,” laughed the aged man, “I be- 
lieve there is a whole lot of demoralized matter in Amer- 
ica, parading around in spadetail coats and sacred linen. 
When the time comes to think of their souls instead of 
their wants, some of them will hang up the high silk hat, 


266 


A WEDDING IN THE WOODS 


fold away the good black suit and will get into a different 
frame of mind.” 

“Well, that’s a mournful way to explain it to a red- 
blooded man, Father Jarenski, for it takes a fellow from 
Lover’s shrine to the city morgue, and I don’t think he 
even has a pass into Kingdom Come. It strikes me as 
being most detestable, that all the good things in this 
world are indigestible or immoral.” 

“You are getting well, John. I see the signs. But re- 
member this that the only love worth pursuing is that 
which draws you close to God. I have told you that be- 
fore.” 

“I believe it too. It surely takes courage to just live!” 

The priest was nodding. He often slept during the 
day. He lurched forward, jerked himself back, smiled 
and got up to his feet. “A fine host I make, going to sleep 
in the midst of a most entertaining subject — to you at 
least. If ever I had loved it would have been one woman, 
just one woman, from her fine young body to her bowed 
old frame. She would have been everything on earth to 
me and my hope of heaven. It is my solution, and I 
wonder that other men don’t see it the same way.” 

“Maybe some of us do. I know I shall never marry a- 
gain !” 

“What’s that?” asked the priest. “A young man like 
you? John, with all respect to your beloved wife, don’t 
live alone. That isn’t the life for you. If you have had 
your youthful love dream once ; don’t think it can’t come 
again. You will marry some day.” 


CHAPTER XXX 

THE NEW ERA 

T HE world is held back by men who do not care to see 
it progress. Philosophers, scientists, men with one 
goal-cooperation, agree to this statement. The profit of 
concentration and efficiency does not interest some men. 

In Ohio there is a little city known as Zoar. It is a 
great pity that this quaint settlement was ever invaded 
by outsiders ; and as sad to know the gentle Zoarites put 
aside their small commercial kingdom to be one of us. 
Not much of Zoar remains but its memory. 

A small settlement with its whole government planned 
and executed! They made their own necessities. They 
managed their own affairs and benefitted by the profits 
that accrued from their labors. They quit it at a time 
when, in the heart of every true American, came that 
feeling of democracy which they had seen used wisely in 
Zoar, and want, even now, among the thinking, working 
race. 

Why not? 

Why don’t we know enough to organize and sell our 
own products? If Zoar could have its butchers, bakers, 
creameries, and every necessary industry, why on 
earth do we trust others to do this for us, take our pro- 
ducts, tie them up in store-houses, while the oil, steel, 
bread and coal magnates sell back to us at their own 
prices? Surely every man should have a share in the cap- 
italization of America. Zoar had its small government, 
without evading the ethical laws of the great Govern- 
ment, and they were happy, contented, satisfied until — 
what caused it? They were getting the profit themselves. 


268 


THE NEW ERA 


I dare say they are not getting it now. Until you can 
trust yourself, believe in yourself, work for yourself, or 
organize with others for yourself, I realize you will ever 
stand where someone will do it for you and you will learn 
the hurt early in the game. 

Coleen was thinking this while opening his mail. Then 
he put it aside, the budget of letters, and looked at his 
sleeping companion, sitting near him before the priest’s 
humble home. The afterglow purpled the western sky. 
It was a lazy, delightful evening. Brutus, awake, snap- 
ping at flies, lay between the two chairs occupied by the 
men. Dusty flowers bowed their heads with odors sweet 
and the need of rain. Autumn flowers are gorgeous in 
color riot, and those in Theresa’s garden, planted care- 
lessly, grew in a glorious show of color. 

Back in Garthage there was no such quiet. Even 
Lodz was working mad at times. It sent its clouds of in- 
dustrial smoke to the very heavens, and soot descended 
with impish delight, blackening everything it touched. 
Not so near the priest’s old home. A drowsy stillness was 
most painful. Coleen was mildly excited. His mail urged 
his home going. For weeks he had considered it lightly. 
Now he wanted to go, and at the earliest possible mo- 
ment. 

He was needed to forge ahead with the business. He 
meant to open a constructive era. He had been clearing 
ground all these years. He knew the pleasure of result. 
That, however, was a mild beginning. Few enlightened 
men care to leave their work unfinished. He used to say 
that some grain was sure to be burned with the chaff. 
Coleen was not a man to ever permit others to do his 
thinking for him. They could work for him; but his 
mind refused alien interference and was usually unham- 
pered. 

Further development of his mail-order crusade must be 


THE NEW ERA 


269 


promoted. Another venture, though he was unprepared 
for it and unwilling to accept any offer at the time, was 
the desire of friends to place him politically on the big 
tread-mill of the State. “ Governor of Ohio — maybe — 
not now. No, not now,” he repeated. 

“In time,” he meditated. “I want it, of course I want 
it ; then, possibly, my light will burn the brighter.” 

He had in mind a political venture. The working plan 
was not original in the business world and not unknown 
in the political field but, as yet not adopted. Only a cru- 
sade and a willingness to spend his own money on the 
project would ever determine whether it was a feasible 
plan or a mere theory, frivolous and impracticable. 

But he meant to try it even if it failed. He could 
smell brimstone as soon as he put it up to Garthage. He 
doubted if even Holmes would agree with him. 

He patted Brutus on the head. 

“Brutus, old beauty, I’m going to take you home.” 

“What’s that?” Father Jarenski was not always a- 
sleep when his eyes were closed. “Going home? What is 
that I hear you imparting to Brutus, while I am so 
near?” 

“Why did you not stay awake? I had no one to talk 
with but the dog. You heard what I said. I’m going 
home. My mail urges me to go at once. I’ll be sorry, Fath- 
er Jarenski, to leave you — only God knows how I shall 
miss you. I’ve been here too long with my troubles and my 
sorrows. What a blessing it has been to have a loyal 
friend during these dark months.” 

“I am glad you feel that way, John; but for you my 
bounty would be poor indeed. I owe so much to you. If 
you must go, and of course you must, I shall not object; 
but — ” sadly, “when you do go, I shall have the assur- 
ance that whatever you go to do, it will be for humanity. 


270 


THE NEW ERA 


It is as much, at times, to save the human body as the 
soul divine. Your work is noble, John. Then you — ” 

Father Jarenski got up, walked into the house, and 
Coleen knew that their conversation was interrupted by a 
sense of loneliness which the old man felt with the unex- 
pected news that the pleasant summer was swiftly draw- 
ing to a close. The priest loved friends. Old age is 
lonely. It has so little companionship. The aged live in 
the past. Friendship so often is withheld. To some 
men old age has more vexations than all of life put to- 
gether. Father Jarenski was lonely for intellectual com- 
panionship which a man of his mental attainment craved. 
Coleen had supplied humor, delightful to the priest who 
told a good story without ever twice repeating it. There 
were sober moments; but generally there was a clash of 
jolly wit; the priest being the winner. 

“Come walk with me, Father Jarenski, we must talk. I 
shall leave Monday. Indeed I shall. I have made up 
my mind to that. Only two days, I know. Yes, yes, I un- 
derstand; but I must go. I dare say I shall return some 
fine day. Now, please do not talk that way. First we 
must visit my adorable nurse. She probably will kiss me 
good-bye, ” jokingly. “Never have I seen a race so care- 
less of hygiene as right here. You kiss — why here she 
comes this very minute. I do wish I could make her un- 
derstand me. I can’t. Tell her we will stop on our way 
back. I do not care to go there now.” 

The message was delivered and interpreted. “She says 
she wants time to get into the house to put away the 
toys; but I must not tell you. Now isn’t that exactly 
like a woman?” 

“Some women. Most women,” confessed Coleen. 
“Better that pride than no pride at all. Say we go down 
this street and make for that' place over there. How 
beautiful it is. If my nurse could come along this would 


THE NEW ERA 


271 


be a place for the enchantment of life. I’d permit you 
to marry me to her by all the sacred rites of your church, 
and that takes half a day, doesn’t it? Time enough for a 
a man to change his mind or get over his divine rage.” 

The priest laughed. “Don’t be silly. Nothing about the 
time it takes. It is the result. It establishes marriage 
and gives permanence to human society.” 

“Permanence? I say you are correct. Eternal servitude. 
Why of course I am not in love ydth the child. She is 
adorable. There is a wandering spark in her dainty 
makeup that is kindling all hearts; but not painfully. It 
is her childlike nature. You know if she were in Amer- 
ica, she would be spoiled. She is so remarkably uncon- 
scious of her beauty.” 

“I thought that the celestial rapture came only from 
the lips of school boys, youths of a tender age. I have 
known coarse rustics to be godlike in their sincere wooing 
and not half-artful at that. Once in a farmer boy’s life 
is he conscious of faces in the clouds, peeping flowers in 
the cornfield and birds that sing to be noticed. But, 
John,” abruptly, “I hope the siren calls you again. In 
time I want you to marry.” 

Coleen turned on him a face of blank amazement. 
“Marry?” he repeated. “My good man, it is the least of 
my intentions. I have been talking like a schoolboy, 
merely to talk. The thought was like a blade of waving 
grass. I’m talking one thing; thinking another. One 
woman’s existence made my world rich. I shall never 
marry. Even if I should ever get it in my head to marry, 
I have not the remotest idea in this world the type of 
woman I should choose. I do not care anything now 
for the color of eyes, hair, height or accomplishment. I 
shall always be pleased to have the friendship of women 
and, if I do not say it I am not much in need of the intel- 
lectual. I guess she would have to be a sort of cuddledy- 


272 THE NEW ERA 

up girl. Father Jarenski, did you ever read Dickens’ 
books?” 

“A few; not all” 

“Well, I have read them all. I ought to be able to 
remember the book which contains my ideal girl. I loved 
her when I was a boy. I loved her all my life. She 
was her husband’s choice and a provoking choice, lovable 
even unto death. Oh, what book was it in anyway? At 
any rate, I remember he was so madly in love with her, 
an earthly grub worshipping the gentle moon, and he took 
her on his lap to gently rebuke her. What did she do? 
She took his pencil from his pocket, drew it from his hair 
down over his brow to his nose, then the length of his 
nose, over his mouth and chin, then gurgled down his 
collar. You know that is a little girl’s act, detracting his 
attention, playing with the man to keep him in a good 
humor. Later that girl-wife died when her baby was born, 
and that is the only time in my life that I ever read any- 
thing that I felt like sneaking away to cry. David Cop- 
perfield? Little Dorritt? Oh, pshaw, I forget books. 
But she was my heart’s love, even then.” 

“Then you must be a blind man, John. I know her too. 
She is alive, a sweet, beautiful, flower of the womanly 
kingdom ; but you never saw her. I could laugh at' you. 
How dense, my son. How remarkably dense. I, too 
admired Dora, the child-wife of David Copperfield. 
It was not Dorrit,” he added with a pleasing smile. 

“Now tell me who it is. I confess ignorance. I 
mean this other girl.” 

“Ruth Benson!” 

“Ruth Benson! My private secretary? Why — yes, 
Father Jarenski, Ruth is a fine young woman, not unlike 
the girl I have just described ; but I don’t think in all the 
years she has been with me that I have ever given her 
one real searching look. You know I never pay any atten- 


THE NEW ERA 


273 


tion to the women in my employ. She certainly is not 
the tailored girl we meet so often. She is a flower sort, 
as you say; wears nice dresses and jewelry in the office; 
but does it as no other girl can or ever will. She is too 
much a child at heart to deny herself the luxuries. But 
really, I never have felt any affection for her. But, 
then, why should I? I was a married man and she knew 
it. Our days together have been as gray as a March sky. 
She may have lovers innumerable. Unquestionably she 
is a splendid young woman.” 

“What I admired was her fidelity to your work. She 
accomplished wonders in that direction. Not many 
young women grasp the vital point of a business idea 
with her alertness. She can handle all the ropes for you. 
She is doing it. Then she goes out of the office, leaving 
her cares there, and outside she is all that a young woman 
should be, girlishly true and frank, full of vivacity, and 
I don’t suppose any woman in Garthage is the possessor 
of more womanly virtues. Not too religious to be lively; 
not too practical to be interesting, just a sort of little 
Peter Pan girl who will never grow up. Marry her, John! ” 

“John will not marry her ! I know she is all you say. 
But, listen, I am much older than Ruth, ages older. She 
would not have me as a precious gift. No, I thank you ; 
you are good. Anything more to say?” 

“Only this, John. I was thinking of her position in 
this world. She is alone, John, sadly alone. I know of 
no living relative. I knew her father, Dr. Max Benson, 
a grander man never lived. Of course you remember 
him. I had forgotten that. Then there was her mother. 
John, I never looked at Ruth that I did not see something 
of the mother in her. Her mother was an artist. I used 
to visit at their home; for I had a sense of the perfect 
splendor of appropriateness the minute I went into the 
house. Once she invited me in to see a vase she had re- 


274 


THE NEW ERA 


ceived as a prize from a school of art, an expensive affair, 
almost two feet high. She directed my attention to it at 
the rear of the room in a maze of dark drapery. I asked 
manlike why she did not bring it out to show it off, which 
she explained was not the thing to do; for it would out- 
shine everything else, and it was a color scheme where it 
was placed. It was that way with everything. She sac- 
rificed nothing real for the artificial; but when she em- 
ployed the artificial, she worked miracles. You see that 
in Ruth. She dresses unlike most young ladies in the 
office. Did you ever see her when, honestly, you could 
say she was not properly dressed ? It was something in- 
dividual, I care not what she wore. She never wore even 
a ring, necklace or bangle that was unbecoming. It was 
not for conquest or show. It was Ruth.” 

“Yes, Ruth,” Coleen repeated spiritedly. “I guess I 
was blind. She must think I am a grim one, could she 
read my thoughts. I know her hair is a pretty shade of 
auburn, and I know it worries her to death when the 
heavy braids come down. Are her eyes gray, brown, blue 
or black?” 

“You had better find out when you go back. Now let 
us talk of something beside women.” 

“I was prepared to do that at the start; but here you 
have talked cuttingly to me and — ” 

“I never advise a man to do anything wrong. You are 
pompously proud of your own opinions, John; and some 
of them don’t amount to anything. You are tactful and 
sturdy and I believe if you told a lie you would be jocose. 
You must remember that I want to give you something 
that will be of everlasting good, dear boy; and when an 
old man advises a younger one to wed the daughter of a 
frioble man and a glorious woman, I am offering you all 
my heart contains.” 

“I know you are.” Coleen looked wistfully ahead. 


THE NEW ERA 


275 


After all, it did seem that he, like many other men, 
looked to distant fields which seem the smoothest, fairest 
and greenest, while unmindful of the green sward and 
flowers growing at their very door. 

“She must have soul, John. Ruth has — soul. Her soul 
can be trusted to the end of time. All that is lovely and 
pure in her as a young woman will be supplanted only by 
what is nobler, more matronly and maternal. Her type 
is the mother of men.” 

The two men crossed a bridge which curved grace- 
fully over a narrow stream. Ducks were paddling in the 
water, splashing with keen enjoyment. They stretched 
their necks, peered with bright eyes at the men, ducked 
and went on. 

“Father Jarenski, that fellow in the rear reminds me 
of an advertisement in a mail-order book. It was printed 
in a hurry, I know, with total disregard for punctuation. 
It read something like this: ‘Child’s toy duck, yellow 
plush body, white head, yellow bill, runs on wheels, flaps 
its wings and quacks thirteen inches long’.” 

The priest laughed heartily. “Express prepaid, fif- 
teen cents,” he added. 

“Wrong. I told you it was plush. Eighty-nine cents, 
eighty-four cents more than it was worth, I dare say ! We 
must go back. I’ve spoiled our talk for this day. I 
hope my nurse has her house in order. We must go 
there. I’ll not have another opportunity. Then I want you 
to go with me over to that Jew’s curiosity shop. I saw a 
topaz brooch there that I’ll buy for Ruth. I knew a 
girl with auburn hair who always wore topaz.” 

“I don’t like topaz. Theresa has an old amber 
spoonholder. It looks exactly like a real topaz. If you 
get Ruth anything in the jewelry line, select a pure 
emerald. Green will be to her what a diamond is to a 


276 


THE NEW ERA 


blonde or brunette. I know a store where we can find 
an exceptionally fine selection of genuine emeralds. Say 
we go there first. It is on our way home.” 


CHAPTER XXXI 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


QUAINT group of men, women and children stood 



ix before the priest’s home that fair Monday morning, 
watching the departure of a foreigner who had been the 
priest’s house guest for many months. Each had known 
Coleen’s kindness and shared largely of his bounty. The 
laws of friendship are as a web interwoven into our lives, 
durable or fragile. Some friendships hurry to short and 
poor conclusions. Better have no friends than those who 
make swift and petty nothings of what we give in return. 
Better a thousand times a book, an apple and a cake in 
solitude by one’s own cheerful fire, than idle moments 
spent with a harping gossip who robs us of time, patience 
and good spirit. There is sweet sincerity in the joy of a 
friend, man or woman, who — listens — understands us. 
Now how many friends have you? Mine have been like 
frostwork on a pane of glass. They vanished with the 
coming of a new day. 

Coleen would have one lasting friend. Old Father 
Jarenski was fingering a gold cross that hung on his ros- 
ary. Silent lips breathed a prayer for the man who never 
looked back. Brutus, with almost human intelligence, 
looked back, then up at the sad face of his master, know- 
ing — as only a dog can know — the mystery of friendship. 
Friendship is sometimes a child’s luxury, it takes cour- 
age for an adult to admit it. But do not blame 
others. Look for your own imperfections. I sometimes 
wonder how much real friendship I gambled away. Now 
it takes courage for me to believe in it, especially when I 
ship-wrecked some myself! How deeply T regret my part 


278 FOR HOME AND AMERICA 

when friendship looks at me with her sad, mournful, ac- 
cusing eyes. 

Coleen settled back in the quaint old rig. What a 
medieval affair this hack proved to be. It was accurate 
in hitting every rough place in the road. Once it stopped, 
being a public conveyance, on its tiresome round to the 
station, and a large woman came in with her basket of 
ducks, a large basket too, and a heavy baby on her arm. 
A lazy husband followed, empty-handed, save for an ex- 
quisite pipe of white filigree, set in what looked like a 
bowl of real gold. Nowhere on earth, probably, could 
one see a greater variety of pipes than Coleen had seen in 
Russia-Poland. All men, old and young, had something 
choice in their own selection. Flowers prettily cupped, 
formed many. Grotesque figures, pieces of artistry, 
certainly hand-made and expensive, were seen carried by 
men who were poorly dressed. No man, seemingly, was 
a burden-bearer. Many wives were pathetically young. 
All seemed to have a child. All women carried the market' 
basket. Slaves of men, their masters, dumb as animals, 
most of them, uncomplaining, no doubt, but plainly 
showing the ravages against youth and youthful freedom. 
Women were old at thirty; ancient at forty. Coleen pitied 
them. They returned his look with eyes as steady and as 
lacking of joyousness as those of an ox in his wooden 
yoke. 

Once in a while a spirited dame flashed into view. 
Every section of the country produced a new and pictur- 
esque type. He found people interesting and enjoying 
his quiet survey throughout his few days’ travel to his 
steamer, he was seeing more and learning more of man’s 
humanity to man than he could have learned by reading 
from books the remaining days of his whole life. There 
were many occasions to laugh; as many when it 
was pathetic to see men and women trying to be 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


279 


content with life. How could they adapt themselves 
to the nothingness? All they had were health, bread 
and climate. Maybe that was their due. No doubt 
there were Romeos and Juliets among them. 

Coleen closed his eyes. He was travel-weary. 
Thoughts carried him happily back to America. He went 
to his office. Swearengen, of course, was married; but 
he still looked natural and willing to work, for all his 
married exuberance of spirit. Zilki was rejoicing over 
the young son — or was it a daughter? — never mind it 
was something. He met Ruth. What made him think 
of her? She was wearing a dress of green and tan 
lawn. Can a woman wear lawn in October? Of course 
not. It was serge. She came into the office and he hast- 
ened to meet her. Why did he do that? Certainly she 
paid no attention to him. Was she worth giving a 
perfectly honorable emerald ? Maybe not. A fat woman 
with a weeping infant disturbed this restless day-dream. 
Again he closed his eyes. Ruth did smile. She looked 
like — he did not know what, only he rushed up to her, 
took her hands, looked into her eyes — brown they were, 
probably — and — he never knew how it happened, for 
she stood on tiptoe, put her arms around his neck and 
rested her child’s lips on his that were so unworthy 
of that virginal kiss. But he stole it as a bold bee 
steals sacred honey from the heart of a flower. But he 
would not marry the best woman on earth, if he could! 

His heart went lonesomely back to his wife. How he 
missed Julia! How lonely he was. If only there was 
just one person to welcome him home. Pass he must 
the old homestead. He would see it from the car win- 
dow when he whirled into Garthage on the afternoon 
train. The great windows, like mournful eyes, would 
look reproachfully at him. How he had loved that home, 
a home but for a few years. His married life had been 


280 FOR HOME AND AMERICA 

a tragedy, nothing else; yet he would not have missed 
it for all its pain; but he wished he alone had been 
the one to die. Julia loved life. Thoughts went back, 
back. He saw his little boy on that day of his birth 
when the world seemed like an enchanted place. He 
had gone into that room, stumbling in the shadow, 
to see — the boy! His boy! His child! A child of 
love! He remembered how the nurse slipped quietly out 
of the room. He knelt down by the bed. His arm went 
over the dainty body of the boy’s mother. His other 
arm slipped over her head, resting on the pillow. He 
encircled mother and babe, and neither prayed nor 
wept. It was a man’s hour of sacred joy, which he 
does not share even with the Almighty — not at the time; 
but ever after. 

He opened his eyes. 

The scene changed. 

Night came on. He had forgotten his dream of Long 
Ago. Too, he forgot Ruth and the cheap bauble he 
was taking home to her. He was ready to begin life. 
Campaign after campaign he planned. Zoar was all 
right on the small scale but America must be for 
unity. There was the strength. All business desires 
rushed over him. The trip was growing tiresome. That 
is the feeling that comes to all of us when homeward 
bound. We would annihilate space if we could. Being 
unable to do that, we hasten the train with imaginative 
speed, and plow the ocean’s deep with fearless haste. 

Of course he would meet Americans on shipboard. 
He was seeing familiar figures, the English, Scotch, 
Irish, tired American tourists and business men. All 
were alert, even when tired. 

There is something peculiarly hypnotic when one stands 
with the crowd, ready to sail that mysterious deep. It 
is a commanding force, full of fear, yet compelling with 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


281 


its fascinating call. There is a call, a voice. Venture- 
some souls cross many times; but all confess to the 
uncanny sensation of knowing that, at last, one’s frail 
being is at the mercy of the waves and the resistance 
of a piece of machinery, an atom against one of the 
greatest destroying elements we have. One must trust. 
And one does trust. Is it any wonder, then, that the 
sight of America, and the goddess of Liberty, calls forth 
the wildest joy and acclamation? Hysteria, you say? 
Maybe you are right. But the tension is over and you 
will never be able to appreciate America until you are 
held back from it by watery distance that makes sport 
of your noble craft that it plays with as roguishly as a 
hungry lioness plays with a mouse. The waves churn 
into white cottony smoothness. Then they get angry 
at play, pile upon each other in rough play, toss, tear 
and rend. They are unruly, unconquerable at times. 
Your craft rises high, sinks low, bellows furiously and 
plows through the torrent of rising waves and the fight 
is on. How long it lasts! It is a conquest of hours 
and elements. No persons other than deckhands dare 
come on deck. Then, finally, as if disgusted with the sport 
of playing with some tiny plaything, the Monster ceases 
her torment. The wind no longer shrieks. There comes 
a sudden calmness. Waves, tired of their frolic, recede 
and the stars come out. Men declare they were unafraid. 
Women admit their terror. But the trouble is over and 
America is near. Frightened children never scampered 
more quickly to the protecting arms of their mothers, 
than Americans to the shrine of the silent Goddess who 
awaits them. Off come hats; the band plays the old 
familiar tune; strangers stand in a maze of bewilderment 
and admiration. Men, accustomed to her greeting, salute 
her gracefully, then forget her. 

I often wonder if she hasn’t a real heart that must 


282 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


realize the pleasures and tragedies of those who come 
and some who go — never to return ? 

Coleen was thinking of this goddess while his ship 
struggled bravely through a storm, not .a bad storm, 
the crew was quick to tell him. It was mild. Maybe 
it was mild; but he would give all he possessed if only 
he could sit right down on the poorest farm in Ohio and 
remain there indefinitely ! 

After the storm he fell asleep. It was the sleep of 
exhaustion. Several more days of travel remained. 
He hoped they would be fair days. He had met and 
talked with some delightful men and women. One 
man was above the average height. A tall commanding 
figure, presumably military. His wife was so tiny she 
could walk under her husband’s arm, and frequently did 
it. The husband, quite homely of face, as solemn as an 
owl, businesslike to the core, smiled with pleasure at 
the antics of his round, little wife. She hadn’t a bit of 
shape, absolutely none. She was an escaped sunbeam, 
laughing, getting up something all the time to amuse 
someone, and finding more pleasure in it than anyone 
else. 

One day her husband while talking with Coleen said : 
“My wife told me she wishes to meet you. Come with 
me, she wants to ask you something, she says.” 

The introduction followed. She chattered merrily. 
He found himself laughing like a boy at her good nature. 
Several times he said: “Your husband, Mrs. Hadyn, 
tells me you wish to tell me something.” 

“Why I had nothing to tell you. I merely wished 
to see you. You see it is this way: I have a cousin, 
not a very brilliant woman, in Philadelphia. She told 
me she was going to marry an editor, and I just wanted 
to see what one looks like!” 

Coleen accepted her joke. It was not original; but 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


283 


she enjoyed it. Looking into her saucy eyes, he said, 
“They are all as ugly as mud ! I have a notion to kiss 
you and throw you overboard !” 

“I’ll tell that to Benny when he comes up. Benny 
will wipe up the deck with you!” 

But Benny was enjoying a good cigar, Coleen’s gift. 

There is no reason why one should attempt to describe 
Coleen’s last two days on the ocean. Everyone who 
has ever crossed and come back, had almost the same 
experience. His was not the least distinctive. Every 
ambition now was to get back home. Once he thought 
he would wire to the office, thought better, and returned 
unannounced. Why should he tell them? At least he 
had no person there who would feel unduly elated at 
his return. Then he was tired. 

He was glad to meet friends on the train. They made 
a jolly crowd and what Coleen had dreaded since he 
had left Garthage was exactly what did not happen. 
So often it happens to reverse its plan for us. The 
train sped swiftly into the town and he was not aware 
that they had reached the station when it was time 
to get off. There had been times when Coleen, having 
been out of a city for a few weeks or even days, returned 
with a feeling that, after all, he was not missed, wanted 
or even needed. This was a natural feeling while he 
was on a newspaper, without a permanent home, and 
often drifting from city to city. 

The station was near his office; but he went to his 
hotel. However, there was no escape. His friends 
found him. 

“Come on. Come on,” they urged. “You are not 
tired! We are having a rousing old meeting down 
at the Community House; banquet; everything big and 
lively. Stay up here and you will be ultramarine blue 


284 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


by morning. Come along. What if you are tired. You 
have to die sometime.” 

What else could he do? He did the best thing that sug- 
gested itself. After all, it was companionship he craved 
and, in all probability, he would enjoy himself. 

Imagine his surprise and delight to find his good 
friend Gardner there. Sure Gardner was a booster. 
He was working right with the boys for every good 
cause. He had to. He wanted to get solid facts to 
begin something back home. 

Coleen listened with others and heard a lot about 
bonuses, honor rolls, pensions, and while it all was as 
dear to his heart as a first Ingersoll watch to a boy, 
he stifled a yawn. His mind was working like a single 
candle-power jitney and he thought he would surely go 
to sleep. 

Cansby had been speaking which, probably, was one 
excuse. How Coleen detested the man. “What’s the 
use, men, what’s the use, of going ahead in every business 
pull and working eternally for the whole bunch? If you 
do give the working men stock on terms that all can 
meet why, good heavens, what does it amount to to be 
a stockholder in nine-tenths of the concerns ? It 
reminds me of the snipe-hunters holding the empty bag 
in the woods. We gotta lot of men here that you think 
you can make glad to work for each other and you 
think you can make the thing harmonize and merge 
with the work of others. Is it right? I’d like to hear.” 

Coleen got to his feet. He felt as if he were one 
hundred and thirty years old, and, probably looked it. 
He turned more to the audience than the speaker. 

“Gentlemen. I challenge the remark of our speaker 
I think we have sufficient proof in Garthage right now 
where our promises to the working man gave him 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 285 

gold and whose performances for us are not chaff and 
stubble.” 

There was a cheer from the men. 

“I’m not here to quarrel with any man's ideas — if 
he has one or more; but when we think of what has 
taken place in Garthage the past seven years, its phen- 
omenal growth, its rise to sudden and lasting pros- 
perity, and increasing industries, to say nothing of 
better working conditions and these splendid homes for 
the workers, I don’t see why any man, especially Mr. 
Cansby, should reflect on the conduct of certain directors 
who divide their dividends if they elect to do so.” 

“I never said that!” yelled Cansby. 

Coleen looked him square in the face. “Mr. Cansby, 
you may have not said it; but you meant it! Before 
I’d stuff my pockets with first-class mortgage bonds 
and go out and talk down what a working man can get 
by honesty, provided he wants to get anywhere in this 
world, I’d certainly not voice your sentiment. I say, 
let men get stock on easy terms. That’s my idea of it. 
Why not the bonuses? It was not original with us; 
we tried it; and let me say right here that, if I don’t 
do another day’s work at anything else, I propose to 
work it out politically.” 

“Then you may have to work it out alone,” Cansby 
answered; “for there isn’t enough political money here — 
no one is so vitally interested to hustle for it — so you 
may have to sell your oil fields to accomplish it.” 

“Then I will do it,” came the calm reply. “I am not 
surprised to receive that reply. But, as you see Garthage 
and its rapid growth, the necessity at all times for police 
protection, I can’t understand why it would not be a 
good idea to adopt all of our police force with regard to 
efficiency. It will be given a try-out soon in other cities 
when its value is recognized. Fail? How can it fail? 


286 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


If a man is working to accomplish anything, hasn’t he 
far greater interest in his work if there is some recog- 
nition afterwards? There have been some excellent offi- 
cers in America, men who did noble work, often at the 
risk of their lives; but, being subordinates, often not 
friendly with the head officers of the police force, they 
never received anything but their usual salary for the 
work. Quite often a good policeman has been taken 
off the best beat and sent to an undesirable place follow- 
ing the bravest deed he ever did. It breaks a fellow’s 
heart to work like that, then to have some bully keep 
him down, probably discharge him, a mere-question-of- 
superiority! ” 

Charlie Holmes had slipped down into his big chair. 
His finger tips were pressed together, a settled look, 
not easily read, was what Coleen noticed. 

“Mr. Holmes, what is your opinion? You seem to 
have struck a snag in your thinking since I began 
talking.” 

Holmes laughed. 

“Why, what I was thinking was this: You must be 
ready to offer a late reward for the fellow who winged 
you when you first came to Garthage. I don’t think 
he is in this crowd.” 

The men laughed. 

“I like your idea; but — I’m honest, Mr. Coleen, I’ll 
have to think it over. It isn’t news to me; but — well, 
you’ll admit that a person should have time to con- 
sider it. We always need good police protection; there 
is the need of reward, if that is your idea, in every 
deal we handle. Couldn’t use that bonus plan any 
better than right here in our politics. I feel as if I 
need a pension, anyhow, for voting the Republican 
ticket for twenty-five years, without even getting the 
post-office. But, gentlemen, the chef just waved frantic- 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


287 


ally to me. I can talk better after eating a good dinner; 
and I can sing better when I’m on water than dry 
land; so let us dine on Baltimore’s fattest oysters and 
probably, we shall find — a pearl.” 

After eating dinner, and no chef in the valley could 
excel black Charlie at the art, Holmes picked up a 
pitcher, milk-stained, and held it aloft. 

“Here’s to the prodigal! Up with your glasses! 
He is back in Garthage to fight — another war of the 
Roses. 

“ ‘We don’t want to fight, but, by jingo, if we do, 
We’ve got' the ships, we’ve got the men, 

We’ve got the money, too.’ 

“Gentlemen, Bleeding Kansas wasn’t in it with poor 
old Garthage with a cinder in her eye when John Coleen 
came here. I guess he thought he had struck the Holy 
Alliance when he got here. But he came and while 
we have seven wonders of the world, I consider John 
one of them (rather than accept the Mausoleum at 
Heliparnassus which I never saw). I’m glad to wel- 
come Mr. Coleen back to the city he made. No man 
here can deny his indefatigable effort to bring peace 
out of chaos. He fought single-handed a foe that 
swooped down on us in the mail-order combine and 
we let him do it long enough to break any ordinary 
man’s spirit; but, because he had a cause, and one 
that went deep into the sacred lives of men, women and 
little children, he came, not as an agitator, but a minister 
to the business people. He has helped save this valley 
and his work has not been done and forgotten; but it 
was like throwing a rock into deep water and the waves 
reaching out and far beyond, touching even distant 
shores. Where was one of us that did it before he came? 
What has he personally gained by it? Absolutely noth- 
ing but the satisfaction of saving business in which he 


288 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 


was not engaged and which we were. I honor him for 
his fine, sterling, upright qualities. He is a man among 
men and we owe him a vote of thanks on this the eve 
of his return to Garthage. Up with your glasses. Zip 
Zip. Hurrah. Why — Mr. Cansby, did your oysters not 
agree with you? Sorry. Gentlemen, I thank you for 
listening and sparing my life at this hour — well, the 
hour is not late, and I doubt very much if we want to 
talk business, anyway. After all, it is not an appropriate 
time.” 

Coleen went over to where Cansby was wriggling into 
a light fall coat. “I’m sorry if I said anything to offend 
you. I ought not to have blazed up as I did; but you 
know I’m strong on this subject.” 

“That’s all right. Why, of course it is all right. 
Had to say something, didn’t we? Had to talk. Not 
what we say, anyhow. What we do. By George, I got 
you blocked back there, Coleen, on that oil hill you 
picked out.” 

“What oil hill?” 

“The Merrill farm you bought.” 

“Merrill farm? I did buy that thing, didn’t I?” 

“You bet you did ! Now what?” 

“Nothing. Only I sold that thing to the Wabash 
Railroad !” 

Holmes ducked his head, laughed and said: “Well, 
I’ll be — darned! I’ll be — darned!” 

But Coleen couldn’t smile. He was dead tired. Later 
it dawned on him that it must have been an impromptu 
affair after all, something for his benefit. The men 
were kind. In a way he felt sorry for giving Cansby 
the barbed-wire thrust. Socially they were as other 
men, mostly; while heartily disliking each other’s bus- 
iness policy. Cansby was not an educated man. He 


FOR HOME AND AMERICA 289 

was all that a shrewd business man longs to be. That 
alone covered a multitude of sins. 

Shortly after Coleen had arrived in Garthage, he 
believed Mr. Cansby was the leading business man and 
his wife the social leader as well as her husband’s busi- 
ness-head. We all make many mistakes when meeting 
new acquaintances. He never quite forgot a remark 
he heard. He had asked if Cansby and his wife went 
much in society. 

“Not much” said a bystander. “Every summer he 
and his wife take a vacation; but it was learned they 
both went up to Battle Creek to take the rest cure. 
That is about as near as they have rubbed around with 
bank-note Tommies. v 

Coleen thought of it that night. Just why, he did 
not know. Tired and sleepy, yet strangely happy, his 
wits traveled lazily without guide or direction. 


CHAPTER XXXII 

AGAIN ON THE FORCE 

R EFRESHED after many hours sound sleep, Coleen 
ate a late breakfast and went to his office. He felt 
like a stranger entering a business house where everyone 
was a stranger to him. How he was to pick up his 
work, he did not know. He had dropped his reins 
in a hurry when he left. But it was certainly good to 
be back. He met the men, most of them had seen 
him the night before. He sat down at his desk, looked 
at the different drawers, pushed pens, paper and ink 
around; replaced them where he found them, then 
waited for — Ruth. She was in another part of the build- 
ing. She came, smiled and shook hands. 

Coleen wanted to laugh. Never was a young woman 
more businesslike. Her attitude was gracious though 
nothing at all as he had meant it to be. She opened 
her desk, took several letters from it, gave them to 
him with the explanation that each needed immediate 
attention. 

He read them through. 

“Miss Benson,” he said, “you may answer three of 
these as you know how they should be answered. Ill 
dictate the answers for these (showing her the remaining 
letters), to Miss Murry.” 

Miss Murry came into the private office. She had 
never been pretty, and with many business cares she 
had grown quite ugly. When first she came to Coleen 
she was uncreditably giddy and thoughtless, performed 
her duties not at all and cried every Saturday when 
discharged; but came back the next Monday morning, 


291 


AGAIN ON THE FORCE 

by request. She now was an expert stenographer, cap- 
able, but no thinker. She proved an excellent imitator, 
but a poor originator. She was short and thin and 
scrupulously clean; but she was ugly, pitifully ugly for 
a girl. She lisped which was the only attraction she 
possessed. Going up to Mr. Coleen she spoke rapidly, 
“Well Mi’thah Coleen, thith ith thurley a treat. Awful 
glad to see you.” 

“Are you?” he said. “Well, Miss Murry, I’m glad 
to see you. I brought you a foreign gift.” He handed 
her a small box. 

Ruth looked at the couple, hearing everything that 
was said. She glanced from her window, up the dreary 
slope of the great Laurel Hill. She had worked hard 
all summer. She had not even enjoyed her vacation. 
It came at a time when the weather was insufferably 
hot. She turned to her machine; put in a fresh paper, 
and wrote. 

Tony had been a caller, sweet and boyishly enthu- 
siastic, eager to drag Coleen away to see that wonderful 
baby. Coleen looked at the little chap, joy unspeakable 
in his eyes at the sight of the boy. How handsome 
was the child! 

“I’ll be down tonight, Tony. I have something for 
you. Yes, and something for the baby. Of course 
I remembered it. Now good-bye, Tony. Go tell your 
mother.” 

After all it was easier to swing back into work than he 
imagined it would be. 

At four o’clock he rose from his desk to go home, went 
to the door and returned slowly, stopping at Ruth’s desk. 
Then he drew up a chair and sat down. 

“Ruth,” and her spoken name surprised each of them. 
“I want to know something. I’ve been thinking it all 
day. I don’t want to leave the office without knowing.” 


292 


AGAIN ON THE FORCE 


“Yes, Mr. Coleen, have I done anything wrong?” She 
looked startled. 

“Wrong? No, Ruth. How could you do anything 
wrong? I am like a great big old lonesome dog, Ruth. 
I don’t know which way to turn. What I want to know 
is just this: are you, Ruth, glad I’m back? I want you 
to be glad! I— don’t think it would have been worth 
coming if you did not want — me — here.” 

He laid his little trophy in her lap. 

She did not answer him. He needed no answer. She 
was opening the box and when she saw the lovely brooch 
lying on its satin cushion, with all the rapture of a pleased 
child, she lifted it to her lips, kissed it and laughed, such 
a hearty, happy laugh that he patted her on the head 
then quickly left the office. 

He knew nothing. She had made no reply. He had 
never meant to make that schoolboy advance. That the 
words of Father Jarenski were driving him on and on, he 
felt' them just as if he had experienced a sort of hypnotic 
power at times, exerted by the aged priest. 

The next day he returned to his work. He worked 
side by side with Ruth. Business was the same as ever. 
He looked for the brooch ; but she was not wearing it. 
Nor did she wear it that week, though he looked each day 
for it. Suddenly realizing that he had indeed made a 
mistake, despite her cheerful manner of acceptance, he 
said nothing more to her. 

The next Sunday he saw her in the choir. Even at a 
distance he saw the green shafts of light that sparkled at 
her neck, buried in a knot of white chiffon. Ah, she had 
kept it, girl-like, as a Sunday trinket. He caught her 
eye, smiled and she smiled back, laying her song-book 
against her breast, the better to hide the small jewel. 

The next day he said : “You can thank Father Jarenski 
for the brooch. He selected emeralds. I was going to 


AGAIN ON THE FORCE 293 

buy topaz. I think he told me your mother was fond of 
emeralds. I wonder which you prefer ?” 

“As I never had anything so lovely as this, and certain- 
ly, not so expensive, I presume nothing else would please 
me so much as emeralds. I love them. But I like topaz 
almost as well. Did I ever thank you for it? Yes? Then 
I’m surprised; for I gazed on it with starved eyes. I 
do love pretty things.” 

She turned aside to answer the telephone. 

“For you,” she said, still holding the receiver. As he 
reached for the receiver, he held her hand, thought better 
and released it. 

“Who? Who? Of all persons on this earth! Natalie! 
I’m surely glad, delighted is the word, to hear your voice. 
I — what’s that?” After a lapse of several minutes, he 
said : “I will ask them. No, I never knew they had fox 
hunts on your father’s estate. Several in this county. I’ll 
see if I can round the men up and we will be there. 
What?” Then he laughed joyfully. 

He turned back to his work. Natalie! Natalie! Then 
something like a dark curtain fell between John Coleen 
and his private secretary. There was Natalie! He 
would see her again. There was a passionate longing to 
see her. He found himself face to face with tender mem- 
ories. “How did men think who had grown old and 
white-haired when they recalled tender passions of years 
gone by? Was it as a jest or merely an incident? Were 
they plunged into deep melancholy or did they make of 
it an idle hour and boast of conquest?” He believed 
that insignificant odds and ends of romances clung to 
every man’s heart. Yes, he had been married at the time. 
He groaned like a man whose bones are being slowly 
crushed. With trembling hands he put his letters away. 
His past came back with its hideousness and he grieved 
for his fault, his unpardonable sin. 


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Would he go? 

He decided not to go. He decided he would go. 
Ever seeing that smile, hearing that voice, believing in 
his own strength, cherishing something he wanted to see, 
hunting for red roses in gray ashes, he — did — go ! 

Ruth Benson with her silk-trimmed dress, her emer- 
ald brooch pinned at her throat, sat silently at her desk, 
sorting mail and attending to Coleen’s private business. 
He had come into the office just long enough for her to see 
how well he looked in his khaki riding suit, then she saw 
him with several men ride down the street and leave for 
the Neugart farm. 

The crowd was ready to go on the hunt when the party 
arrived from Garthage. Coleen had never met Natalie’s 
husband. The instant he saw him, he appreciated the 
man’s worth and something attracted the two men to each 
other. They chatted easily. Coleen liked the young 
lawyer, who was a typical son of the metropolis and at 
ease with his fellow man. Then Natalie drew her horse 
up by the side of Coleen’s and they set out at a merry 
pace. She slowed her horse, looked back at him, say- 
ing: “Are you coming?” What an infinity of dreams he 
caught in her eyes. It was, indeed, the same Natalie. 
Possibly a little surer of herself, certainly matronly in her 
bearing and not at a loss to be a pleasing hostess. Coleen 
knew she was exquisite, without envying the owner of the 
wonderful woman. What he had known in the girl was 
intensified in the woman. But suddenly she gave a start, 
struck her horse lightly with her riding whip, and was a- 
way like the wind to join her company of friends, men 
and women. Coleen rode by her side, but switched a- 
side to talk with some men. They were scattering in 
different directions over the hills. Dogs bayed, horns 
sounded, horses fretted to get into the real chase. A 
long blast was heard in the distance, a call to the chase 


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295 


and the race was on. Like a captive bird, just escaped, 
Natalie rode by the side of her husband. She rode ex- 
ceedingly well and Coleen saw them pass over the hill 
and out of his sight. 

So far as he was concerned, he was ready to return to 
his office. The sport did not attract him. If he could 
excuse himself, he would. The fire had died down in 
his romance. It always had done this way. But, what 
pleased him more than anything was the way Natalie 
had carried it out. Was she trying to prove to him that 
the impassible barrier was there, that he would please her 
more by honoring her than remembering? There had 
been evidence of an almost girlish attempt to prove 
something to Coleen that he might see her in all the per- 
fection of her honorable wifehood. She showed the love 
she felt for her husband throughout the day and its jolli- 
fication, and during the dinner at her home that night, 
she was revealing over and over again things which she 
was afraid someone present would think she had lost. 

The memory of a charming wife, a remarkable Natalie, 
closed one chapter in his life that October day. Never 
would she be just the same. It would be a pleasant 
memory, nothing else, nor would he have made it different 
if he had the desire. Not to honor a man whose wife 
you may admire, is about one of the surest signs of your 
own inferiority; for it shows the cloven hoof that in- 
vades another’s domain. 

The year passed. That awful holiday season came and 
went. Short, indeed, had been the year, but long, like an 
eternity in its monotony to the editor. 

His campaigns took him east and north. Men were 
seeking his services as a speaker of business truths. He 
never spoke at length at any meeting, possibly one rea- 
son why his short talks, impregnated with nothing but the 
truth, sounded true and gave weight to every assertion. 


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Banquets and socials developed the social side of life. He 
liked men, was always glad to be with them. They were 
far more powerful factors in his life than women had ever 
been. He liked the personal contact in business that in- 
jected a human note in all that he was doing. He dug 
out more destroying roots in the business field, the killing 
mail-order growth that kept other things from growing to 
their complete fruition. That enemy he fought with all 
the fighting tenacity of a business Bonaparte. His 
constructive policies being simple, men were able to un- 
derstand them as well as ready to adopt them, one way 
he had of insuring efficiency in co-operation with different 
men of different views, each responsible in some work 
that helped to construct the gigantic whole. The worth 
of any man is measured by testing, so it was with what 
Coleen always had to tell them. He was a quiet speak- 
er, seldom giving way to vituperation. To be emphatic 
was his aim and he did not create a scene to do it. Some 
attributed his success to his own personal magnetism; 
others to the sincerity of his own convictions. One of 
his best lectures was “When I Stopped Trying To Fool 
Myself.” In that was a sermon to men. First the boy 
at school with no thought of his future responsibilities, 
happy, satisfied with what each day brought him, enjoy- 
ing the freedom and the optimism of youth ; then the col- 
lege boy with nothing lacking in what constitutes the de- 
velopment of every possibility in the young man. It was 
a time in life when the boy disliked to relinquish his play 
days for serious matters, one reason why both were easily 
and happily balanced. This picture of the college youth 
was the strong feature of Coleen’s lecture, for he had 
missed college days, something he had ever regretted. 
Likely it was one reason why he paid such glowing trib- 
ute to the college boy with his limping inclinations and 
his half-baked ideas, though always keen and as alert as 


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a fox-hound on the scent. Then came the man in business. 
He enjoyed success, surmounted defeat, sometimes bowed 
down before it, got up, staggered under the blow, stunned, 
defeated; but ready to go ahead, always ready! As a 
college boy he had measured his strength with physical 
and mental possibilities, but mostly physical, for he 
wanted success mostly on the football teams, while stub- 
bornly denouncing the academic part of his duties. Now 
that he was a man with a going concern in business he 
told how to weed out incompetence; what requirements 
were necessary for a situation which you hadn’t happened 
to anticipate. There was the man whose opportunity 
was not ripe. As nothing stays put, the man looked a- 
head, always ready to step into the place where success 
opened the door or let down a bar; and, when this did 
not happen for him, he hurdled the barrier, not knowing 
just where he would land. 

But he told this story in a way that let every man see 
himself from childhood to boyhood. There was so much 
that was human, with its humor and pathos, that those 
who sat spell-bound under the forceful but eloquent dis- 
course, could not believe that the lecturer had finished 
his story and stood looking kindly down at the sea of 
faces. None knew that the reason for the story taking 
vital hold on every listener was because it came from the 
heart, and, therefore, returned to it. It was John Coleen’s 
own life, told with every throb of his heart. It pleased 
the youth and interested the men who had covered a 
stretch of the same progress in their lives, with different 
variations. With a battery of brain-cells, everyone gen- 
erating business power, Coleen was not the man to stand 
before intelligent men, telling them things they could not 
believe, or offering them false hopes. He did not tell them 
it was an easy game. His character had gone through 
the world with a flint in his heart instead of a rose on his 


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lapel. Then he looked at the sturdy business men, the 
grim faces, steel-visaged bankers, bosses and leaders and 
said, perhaps a bit sadly : “Why is it you show inappreci- 
ation? Why do you hold aloof from the men who work 
for you? Are you afraid of their ingenuity or are you un- 
willing to admit their intelligence to grasp your ideas? 
Each time you keep an employe down, don’t you know 
you invite competition, provided the man has an idea 
which you will never know he does possess until you try 
him out. Not always the aged have that idea. Mere 
youths sometimes give us genius. It is the boy who takes 
his mother’s kitchen clock apart or dissects your old army 
musket that is worth something, and God knows it is not 
the works ! When we turn down an ambitious youth and 
plainly he sees no future partnership, no rise, no hope, 
can’t you see that boy or young man headed for a bus- 
iness of his own? It does happen. It always has. You 
know the truth of it as well as I. 

I once talked with one of our leading inventors who 
had heard this lecture, and he said to me : “Mr. Coleen, 
I believe all you say. No invention of mine would have 
been a success had I not studied out my failures.” 

The hardest problem in the business world for the man 
of natural ability is to believe in the fellow who comes 
slowly to the front. Another man who is usually re- 
garded as of little consequence at the time is the man of 
ability, not as yet recognized, but who is a plunger. 
His bedrock principles are successful in business through- 
out the united kingdom, but it is because the plunger is 
a genius that he is a success. It is the rogue who 
follows in his wake that makes us distrust each, while 
the right one goes on with his science of business, as 
did Coleen, and forges majestically ahead. 

There was a time when Coleen had lost a splendid ad- 
vertising contract. It was an annual one for him at a 


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time when he needed it the most. The advertiser brought 
it to the office where Coleen read it. It was readable, yes; 
but it was the result of image-making phrases. It did 
not ring true, and Coleen who was editor, job printer and 
his own errand boy, denounced it. “Don’t flag the peo- 
ple with a lie,” he said, handing back the advertisement. 
Naturally he lost out; but so did the advertiser who in- 
sisted elsewhere on its publication. 

That was John Coleen ’s business policy in everything 
he ever did. This was the gist of his lecture course as he 
traveled throughout the state, venturing into other states 
and making new discoveries wherever he went. Men 
did want to — know. They were eager to learn. Happily 
the campaigns had their social feature which enlivened 
them. There were no officers of commerce side-stepping 
the new activity. Indeed they saw the need of it. 
Doubtless I need say no more of this, as its fruition is 
evidenced today from coast to coast, not alone in one or 
two states; but, like a business of its own, the boost-for- 
home trade is fighting in and out of the trenches for 
home welfare and most of the warfare is strongly against 
the mail-order business. “Down with it!” is the slogan 
on every man’s lips. 

Winter passed, spring awakened once more with a 
yawn and smile as delightful as that of a waking child. 
It was then that Coleen thought of his home, that vacant- 
staring home which knew no footfall other than that of 
the caretaker. At times Coleen looked from his office up 
at his house, which could easily be seen back on its high 
terrace, the fashionable boulevard of Garthage. It was 
the only uninhabited house there. 

One evening he was looking lonesomely over at the 
house, his heart as drab as a January sky and far more 
listless. He turned to Ruth busy with some papers. 
Sitting down by her side, he reached over and took her 


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hands from the keys, looked around him, then into her 
eyes to read there if she had learned the lesson he had 
tried in a thousand ways to teach her day by day, the 
interest he took in her, the love he dare not speak, which 
must show itself. 

“Ruth,” he spoke, “I wonder if you would like to go 
up there and make life worth living for each of us? Do 
not speak, dear ; but let me talk at this time. All day I 
have watched that lonely house, no lonelier, dear, than 
your heart and mine. It is a beautiful place ; but it can 
be made a little haven of refuge for us. I want you, 
Ruth. Love ? Why, dear child, how could I ask you if 
I did not love you more than any woman in the whole 
wide world, especially when I know so many? Ruth! 
my — Ruth !” 

I, who knew John Coleen, his whole life’s story, would 
not invade that love shrine at a moment like this. I do 
not want you to listen to her reply. Let us see them, if 
we want to, as they look up at the house, the future 
abode of man and wife. 

“But now that you have told us this,” you say, “where 
is the romance of a man of his years whose wife is another 
type of child- wife, with wisdom beyond her years? Did 
he indeed, win Ruth ‘the Dora’ of a David Copperfield 
dream, after waiting so long?” 

It was never my intention to let you read the love ro- 
mance of John Coleen. Yet it has come naturally. 
Our love comes sometimes in youth; sometimes when 
hearts are older and truer; or it may miss us entirely. 
Yet the sweetest love he had ever known — and you now 
know his life’s history, came with Ruth — indeed his 
child-wife. 

After all it is but history. You may take the history 
of splendid triumphs, that of king and poet, philosophers 
and priests, the dreams of nuns and the ecstacies of 


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saints; but where does the heart that beats true to 
life find greater joy or peace in this world than John 
Coleen found in the love of Ruth who, as I said, reasoned 
beyond her years and knew the worth of a noble life she 
was to share throughout eternity. 

The End. 

























































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